allowed large amounts of information flow in minimal time and thus also reshaped the processes

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1 Padmavathy Manavazhahan Dr. Kim Knight HUSL 6392: Viral Media December 15, 2015 Since its inception approximately forty years ago, the internet has changed the world more than the industrial revolution changed the world in the past two hundred years. It has allowed large amounts of information flow in minimal time and thus also reshaped the processes of communication in practically every aspect of life. It has been integrated into businesses and governments in a way that has allowed them to evolve as never before. It is hard for us to imagine life without instantaneous and perpetual access to the internet today. In India, the establishment and usage of the internet has caused unimaginable changes, especially given the unique environment of diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds in which Indians coexist, as well as the expansive gap between lifestyles of the rural and urban citizens. Gnanasambandham et al measure the impact of the internet in India in comparison with other nations around the world. They assess impact of the internet on India s economy, measuring the broader impact of the internet in terms of consumer surplus and the development of different internet ecosystems. They found that India s base of 120 million internet users is currently the second largest in the world, and that India has the potential to double its economic contribution from the internet. However, the impact of the internet in India is currently constrained by gaps and obstacles in the internet ecosystem. Though this ecosystem is becoming more vibrant, the benefits have been relatively constrained due to an extensive digital divide. Nevertheless,

2 Manavazhahan 2 concerted actions by policy makers and businesses in specific areas can help India achieve an inclusive Internet transformation (Gnanasambandham et al 1-2). In this essay, I examine the challenges and obstacles of the internet ecosystem in India and how the government s current Digital India initiative overcomes some of those challenges. In identifying the barriers for positive internet impact in India, I will also examine the existing internet ecosystem and user groups involved, and how Digital India aims to further facilitate the growth of the media ecosystem and its players for the purpose of social, political, and economic progress. In a world where the evolution of information and communication technologies has led to increasingly networked societies, the development of any nation depends on the strengths of its information systems and connectivity to its own people and the world at large. India has exhibited a remarkable start in harvesting information communication technology, both in governmental and nongovernmental sectors. The national e-governance plan was introduced in 2006 to improve service delivery by the government and also reach out to previously excluded communities (Mishra 21). Major telecom players in the country have also introduced strategies to reduce cost of access to the internet in order to target rural populations who might not be able to afford it otherwise (Gnanasambandham et al 3). Despite these programs, there continues to be major gaps in the internet ecosystem in India, especially as when compared with other countries. Though India has the second largest internet-user base in the world, there are challenges which must be overcome at a national level in order to increase participation in the internet ecology. Limited availability of internet infrastructure, high cost of access and usage, lack of awareness and low digital literacy, a narrow range of applications and services, all coupled with

3 Manavazhahan 3 a relatively stifling business environment have caused a relatively low level of user adoption and engagement as compared with peer nations. Average bandwidth and PC penetration is low in India, and net penetration among the rural population is a mere one-twelfth of the urban population. Reliable electricity supply is a major bottleneck as well. India has one of the highest median costs of broadband access, and only thirty-five percent of Indian businesses offer online services. Applications can be scaled to areas like agriculture, education, and healthcare, and the number of procedures required to start a new business could be reduced to increase internet entrepreneurship (Gnanasambandham et al 6). Mishra s identification of challenges and obstacles parallels these gaps. A more favorable internet environment, encompassing the political, entrepreneurial, and digital spheres, could be facilitated with better legal infrastructure, institutional infrastructure, and data system infrastructure. The adult literacy and computer literacy of India is still fairly low, especially in rural areas as compared with urban populations. In an online survey of India s small and medium sized enterprises, lack of education of using the internet was cited as one of the major reasons preventing customers from using websites (25). Decreased confidence in security and privacy of net connections also contributes to gaps in the internet ecosystem, with businesses getting hit the hardest with lack of defense against emerging cyber threats (Wipro et al 41.) While all these obstacles do exist, India has significant advantages that make it fertile ground for an internet-enabled transformation. It has a youthful demographic profile, with over fifty percent of the population under the age of thirty, which would contribute to a large future wave of early adopters of technology and a large pool of workers with technical education. India also has a strong culture of entrepreneurship and the ability to adapt a business model in a

4 Manavazhahan 4 resource-limited environment. Given these strengths, Gnanasambandham et al identify five areas where India can take concerted action in order to boost foundational network elements and significantly increase the impact of the internet broad-based, inclusive manner (11). Firstly, infrastructure can the extended for low cost, high-speed connectivity to non-urban parts of India. Internet infrastructure and mobile connectivity should be extended beyond top tier cities like Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Bangalore. Accelerating existing government programs to do so, promoting private-public partnership, and more encouraging telecom policy could all contribute to connecting rural India to the digital sphere. Second, the cost of internet access and usage can be reduced even further. Though previous programs have reduced cost of access, rural areas still lack affordable access. Rationalization of tax structures, direct subsidies, conditional cash transfers, and regulated broadband tariffs can all potentially make the internet more affordable. Third, enabling large-scale digital literacy can lead to higher user engagement. Development of local language content with image-based user interfaces and less textual content can facilitate increased usage. Fourth, internet-based applications can be interfaced to all parts of the economy, encompassing nontraditional areas such as agriculture, energy, education, utilities, and healthcare. It is key that the products and services developed for the Indian consumers address a much wider range of needs than what would perhaps be developed for western countries. Lastly, a favorable environment for internet businesses to start up and scale up can be created. Easy procedures coupled with tools and platforms which help enterprises run could provide a major boost to the start-up ecosystem in India, which would then again strengthen the overall internet ecosystem.

5 Manavazhahan 5 Gnanasambandham et al go on to identify various players in the net ecology who could enact change in these five areas simultaneously and each benefit from the increased internet penetration (41). Since the internet has the potential to reach diverse sections of the Indian poluation, from young urban entrepreneurs to rural farmers, all members of the online ecology, from policy makers to private enterprises to innovators and individual citizens, can play an active role in accelerating the internet s potential. As previously mentioned regarding a poor business start-up environment in India, policy makers can set up more effective laws for businesses and aid processes in programs of inclusion. Private enterprises like Reliance, Airtel, and Vodafone can utilize their dominant position in the telecom sector to provide affordable access to rural populations. They can also help incubate and mentor new internet-driven ideas, promoting digital literacy and awareness. Innovators and entrepreneurs can improve the supply of products and services that become available as internet penetration increases by making applications and services optimized to low-end mobile devices which the majority of rural populations can afford. The government, private enterprises, and entrepreneurs are just a few players in India s internet ecology, but they can be key ones. Entrepreneurial user groups like Naukri, Tutorvista, Flipkart, Snapdeal, and Redbus have forged ahead in the internet landscape of the country by designing innovative business models to overcome physical and digital challenges and reach a wider set of customers. Large enterprise like Tata Motors and Cognizant Technology Solutions adopted the internet to help reduce costs and provide better customer value products. As Fuller states, media ecology is deployed as a euphemism for the allocation for informational roles in organizations and in computer-supported collaborative work (3). India s internet ecosystem is built of various aspects which play roles in the proper functioning and wide-spread penetration

6 Manavazhahan 6 of the internet in India. Gananasambandham et al identify three major elements of this internet ecosystem, namely environment, engagement, and expenditure (26). India can improve its internet usage and penetration most drastically by advancing the environment aspect of the ecology, where stronger infrastructure, including transport, telephony, and energy become of higher quality and more regular consistency. It should be noted, though, in this media ecology, that the young and dynamic user population is driving the growth of online consumption and is using the internet in sophisticated ways and patterns similar to those of developed countries. India s internet ecology has a uniquely India flavor with 22 official languages and over 120 major languages, local content development and innovation is particularly important in this media ecology. It is in this diverse ecology that e-government can provide multiple dimensions of services and opportunities. Mishra defines e-governance as the use of information communication technologies to facilitate the processes of government and public administration for achieving good governance (21). Various facets of good governance include transparency, efficiency, and simplicity, and decentralization. Digital India: Power to Empower, a program launched by Indian Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on July 1 st, 2015, is one such recent and current e- governance initiative. It aims to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy in order to transform the entire ecosystem of public services in India through the use of information technology. The campaign s methodology and approach employs multiple government ministries and departments to provide much needed thrust in the below nine identified growth areas, known as the nine pillars, which each are complex programs in themselves: Broadband Highways, Universal Access to Mobile Connectivity, Public Internet

7 Manavazhahan 7 Access Program, E-Governance: Reforming Government through Technology, ekranti: Electronic Delivery of Services, Information for All, Electronics Manufacturing, Information Technology for Jobs, and Early Harvest Programs. As discussed at public talks by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, this campaign by the government is also a current, live example of a government using social media to bridge the communication gap between itself and its constituency, to connect a population of over 1 billion with adequate digital infrastructure, to express itself both as a governing body and as individual politicians with personalities, to facilitate diplomatic relations with other world governments, and to increase productivity in the workforce, empowering women and girls in the process. According to Wipro et al, Digital India can help in connecting the dots of various projects public and private, past and present to being India to a global platform. It helps in moving with the digital innovation trend and creates positive impacts in the lives or people rural and urban, young and old (3). It does so by focusing its nine-pillar program on three key, citizencentric vision areas: Digital Infrastructure for Every Citizen of India, Governance and Service on Demand, and Digital Empowerment of Citizens (5). Mishra lists a few key projects under the Digital India program which bring the nine pillars to actuality, versus simply being statutes on paper (25). MyGov.in fosters citizen engagement in governance thought a discuss, do, and disseminate approach, also available on a mobile phone application. Bharat Net is a high speed digital highway which will connect all 250,000 cities and villages in the country notably, this would be the world s largest rural broadband connectivity project using optical fiber. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited will undertake large-scale deployment of WiFi hotspots throughout the country, so that users can latch onto this network using their mobile devices. These projects,

8 Manavazhahan 8 along with key policy changes, would be cross cutting, ranging from broadband connectivity in all villages, WiFi in all schools and universities, and IT delivery of services in healthcare, education, agriculture, banking, and more, by 2019 (Mishra 26). A tremendous number of opportunities are also available in the business sector: Digital India allows the creation of a huge base for electronics manufacturing and introducing digital technologies and skills to change the fortunes of the underserved segments of Indian society. Entrepreneurs in internet services, mobile and e- commerce, and design and manufacturing services, and more will find ample scope for creativity and innovation in the new environment (Wipro 29). As previously mentioned, the goal of the Digital India initiative is to prepare the nation to be well-connected, efficient, and productive it aims to reach out to the most remote corner of the country irrespective of climactic, geographical, political, and land topology to enable twoway interaction with the national, state, or local government. The program uses various enabling technologies, aligned with the 3 visions and 9 pillars, to disassemble existing platforms and eventually reassemble society, as Van Dijck outlines: the mutual intertwining of microsystems with the ecosystem brings out how individual platforms interact to make the greater system of sociality (25). Cloud computing is one of the microsystems which Digital India deconstructs and rebuilds to converge and share services, both public and private (Wipro 14). A Common Service Center provides information and private space on a public cloud, information for all, and twoway communication between the citizen and government, thereby contributing to the larger vision of the Digital India program to reshape lives regardless of socio-economic, geographical, or regional diversity. Mobility solutions is another microsystem stripped and redeveloped by the Digital India program. It enables collaboration between mobile apps, social media, and analytics,

9 Manavazhahan 9 linking various information sectors and integrating different viewpoints and requirements of users (Wipro 16). Security and information categorization comprises a third platform disassembled and reassembled under Digital India. Digitization of mobile and bank accounts, creation of safe and secure cyber spaces, and electronic financial transactions via a collaborative digital platform allow each user a unique digital identity (Wipro 17). Analytics, machine-tomachine communications, and social media are other platforms taken apart and then combined as techno-cultural constructs and as organized sociopolitical and socioeconomic structures to aid in societal progress (Wipro 17 20). Of the five areas identified by Gnanasambandham et al, in which India can improve its positive impact using the internet, the Digital India project encompasses all five in either a direct or indirect way. The Digital India program is extending infrastructure for low cost, high speed connectivity to both urban and rural parts of India, working with private corporations to reduce the cost of internet access even further, using enterprises to enable digital literacy and promote user engagement, introducing internet-based applications in nontraditional parts of the economic landscape, and creating a favorable environment for businesses to both start and scale up. Singh Grewal points out that computer literacy is still at an unacceptable low only one percent of the population and should be focused on by the government in order to accelerate internet impact and specifically Digital India impact (24). While this is an area for future focus, the current efforts by Digital India to change the social, political, and economic landscapes of India are definitely on the right track. The government is encouraging and facilitating networked social movements by implementing their Digital India program, connecting more and more of the population to a previously unused and unengaged virtual space of participation.

10 Manavazhahan 10 As Castells states, networked social movement will continue to fight and debate, evolve, and eventually face away in their current states of being (244). I personally have experienced the rise of digitization in India, having been born there and still in constant communication with family and friends living there. With the recent #ChennaiFloods movement, which occurred in multiple forms, via multiple social media platforms, and having occupied the urban physical space, I especially witnessed the establishment of a networked social movement, its evolution, and eventual fading away, with other characteristics like being global and local at the same time, which Castells outlines (222). Another relevant example is the use of Whatsapp and the Digilocker which I have learned about and even come to use because of my Indian family and friends. Wipro so aptly stated, using Sanskrit terminology in the description of Digital India, something I experienced with the coming of the digital age in India: In the current global scenario, strongly believing in Vasudhaiva Kutumbam (the whole world is one family) can usher the country into a new world of wisdom and knowledge where digital forces can help to bridge the gap between the elderly western world and the young eastern world of the future (Wipro 22). Digital India is a program of the current India government which has harnessed the potential of the internet to connect and reinforce multiple aspects and dimensions of the India media ecology, interweaving the individual citizen with small and medium sized enterprises, large-scale entrepreneurs and corporations, and the India government. While it provides services to the people, increases transparency for government activities and information, and also establishes efficiency and simplicity through online platforms, it accelerates net adoption and serves as a model for all other user groups of the internet ecosystem. The program is a step in the right direction for the nation to unleash global and national prosperity using technology.

11 Manavazhahan 11 Works Cited Castells, Manuel. Beyond Outrage and Hope: The Life and Death of Networked Social Movements. Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age. Wiley & Sons, Castells, Manuel. Changing the World in the Network Society. Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age. Wiley & Sons, Fuller, Matthew and Malina, Roger F. Introduction. Media Ecologies: Materialist Energies in Art and Technoculture. Cambridge: MIT Press, Gnanasambandham, Chandra; Madgavkar, Anu; Kaka, Noshir; Manyika, James; Chui, Michael; Bughin, Jacques and Gomes, Malcolm. Online and Upcoming: The Internet s Impact on India. Mckinsey & Co. December Mishra, Unnati and Fatmi, S.N. e-readiness of India with Reference to National e-governance Plan. International Journal of Computer Applications. Volume 123, No 8. August Singh Grewal, Dalvinder. Digital India and Digital Divide: An Analytical Study. International Journal of Computer Science and Programming Language. Volume 1, Issue Van Dijck, Jose. Disassembling Platforms, Reassembling Society. Culture of Connectivity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Wipro, MITSOT, Confederation of Indian Industry, Deloitte. Digital India: Unleashing Prosperity. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India Private Limited