KACHARAGADLA

Despite the Modi wave vouching for a Digital India, India boasting of some of the top IT companies, tech entrepreneurs and new digital startups springing every day, there is a disturbing fact that we’re all keep curtained. Only a small fraction of the population actually has access to the web. Debates over net neutrality and Facebook’s Free Basics seem to have conveniently forgotten how the focus should primarily be on how to give access to every Indian before we actually debate its different forms and limited coverage. Recently, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey on the impact and coverage of internet in India. Only 22% of adults in India had access to Internet services. This puts India very behind other developing countries like Brazil & China, where Internet access rates are 65% and 60% respectively. There are several factors to why internet acess is so limited here: Infrastructure problems Building a high speed, large coverage internet grid requires heavy infr

While recent reports have said that India has outstripped China in terms of FDI, this is a limited view. In fact, China’s gross FDI inflows are far higher than India’s. While FDI inflows into ‘Make in India’ industries have increased, the export focus of the campaign seems to have been diluted in favour of the Digital India sectors, suggests a report by brokerage firm Emkay Global. The report, published on Wednesday, also adds that while recent media reports have said that India has outstripped China in terms of FDI, this is a limited view. In fact, China’s gross FDI inflows are far higher than India’s. While $5.3 billion flowed into the computer software and hardware sectors between December 2013 and June 2015, only $1.1 billion entered the construction sector in the same period, the report finds, based on data from the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). In addition, the report s

The Digital India programme is a flagship programme of the Government of India with a vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. The journey of e-Governance initiatives in India took a broader dimension in mid 90s for wider sectoral applications with emphasis on citizen-centric services. Later on, many States/UTs started various e-Governance projects. Though these e-Governance projects were citizen-centric, they could make lesser than the desired impact. Government of India launched National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) in 2006. 31 Mission Mode Projects covering various domains were initiated. Despite the successful implementation of many e-Governance projects across the country, e-Governance as a whole has not been able to make the desired impact and fulfil all its objectives.  It has been felt that a lot more thrust is required to ensure e-Governance in the country promote inclusive growth that covers electronic services, products, devic

Google will soon help India  set up base for free Wi-Fi at 500 railway stations  while Microsoft will take low-cost broadband technology to some 500,000 villages across that country as part of five key announcements made during the meeting the US top tech titans had with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. As the who's who from the tech world gave a ringing endorsement to the ambitious 'Digital India' programme,   Microsoft   CEO   Satya Nadella   said it will announce cloud computing systems from data centers in India next week, calling it a "big milestone". "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 400 railway stations in a short time," Modi told a gathering of Silicon Valley CEOs. In his remarks, Nadella said Microsoft's plan is to partner with the Indian Government to bring in low-c