Says India aims to provide broadband access to 600,000 villages
Global search giant Google will enable over 500 railway stations in India with wi-fi access, even as the country’s national open fiber network aims to provide broadband access to over 600,000 villages in the country.
“We are expanding our public Wi-Fi hotspots. For example, we want to ensure that free Wi Fi is not only there in airport lounges, but also on our railway platforms. Teaming up with Google, we will cover 500 railway stations in a short time,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the Digital India dinner at San Jose, California on Sunday morning India time.
Modi did not elaborate the terms with Google.
“We want our 1.25 billion citizens to be digitally connected. We already have broadband usage across India go up by 63% last year. We need to accelerate this further,” said Modi.
The country has launched an aggressive expansion of its national optical fibre network that will take broadband to over 600,000 villages and connect all schools and colleges with broadband.
“Building I-ways are as important as highways,” said Modi.
Modi explained that the aim is to turn India’s villages into smart economic hubs and connect our farmers better to markets and makes them less vulnerable to the whims of weather.
“For me, access also means that content should be in local languages. In a country with 22 official languages, it is a formidable, but an important task” said Modi.
Arguing that the digital age offered opportunities for governments to transform lives of people in ways that was hard to imagine just a couple of decades ago, Modi said technology is a tool to empower and bridges the distance between hope and opportunity.
“This is what sets us apart from the century that we have just left behind. There may be still some who see the digital economy as the tool of the rich, educated and the privileged. But, ask the taxi driver or the corner vendor in India what he has gained from his cell phone, and the debate gets settled,” the Prime Minister said. “I see technology as a means to empower and as a tool that bridges the distance between hope and opportunity. Social media is reducing social barriers. It connects people on the strength of human values, not identities.”
He said technology is advancing citizen empowerment and democracy that once drew their strength from constitutions and forcing governments to respond in 24 minutes instead of 24 hours and help India’s transformation on a scale that is unmatched in human history.
“For nothing else will do in a country with 800 million youth under the age of 35 years, impatient for change and eager to achieve it,” he said. “We will transform governance, making it more transparent, accountable, accessible and participative. I spoke of E-Governance as a foundation of better governance – efficient, economical and effective.”
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Raghu Krishnan
Quelle/Source: Business Standard, 27.09.2015
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