The Indian Info-Rickshaws 205
DoomDoom writes "CNN is running a story
on how the Indian government is delivering health and educational services on a WiFi equipped rickshaw to the poorest of its citizens. It's a poetical union of a typical third world product with high-tech! Do you still think computing is unnecssary for the poorest of the poor?"
Yeah, but it's Indian English. (Score:1, Interesting)
The Indian guys I work with are always talking about "veediables"[1] and whatnot. In print, though, there's no accent, so no problem.
This is precisely why India is such a bonanza for outsourcing: An incredible number of Indians are well-educated and speak English. Probably more English speakers in India than any of the countries where it's the official first language.
More power to 'em, I say.
[1] Variables.
Re:necessity (Score:4, Interesting)
cost (Score:5, Interesting)
Government initiatives (Score:4, Interesting)
In the article, it mentions many Indian villages are poorly wired, telephone lines can go dead for weeks at a time, making wireless technology the most reliable Web connection.
However, what it takes is a willing government to find an alternative, rather than giving promises to improve telephone lines.
Re:Hard Life (Score:4, Interesting)
The third world meets the Superhighway (Score:2, Interesting)
When people from my company travel to rural India and mention who they work for, people immediately assume they build toilets!
Still have doubts!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hard Life (Score:1, Interesting)
One can't compare the minimum wage in country x and say that Indians are getting paid less than that and therefore it is exploitation and unfair. The last I remember, 1 British pound = ~ Rs. 70. Now, I'll put that in perspective with the basic necessities of life, say food. If I were to eat a normal meal at a decently priced restaurant, I could probably make that much money last for about 4 meals; which is quite a bit. I've only been to England once (a looong time ago), but I'm pretty sure that you can't buy even one meal for a pound.
All these statistics about how Indian engineers only make a few hundred dollars a month, in my opinion is totally BS. Because they give a totally false impression. They make a few hundred dollars, but in the whole month, they probably don't even spend $50 on food or so. And same for the other stuff. In Mumbai, I can get from one end of town to the other end and back on a train for ~ Rs.16. Here in Ottawa (Canada), to go on a bus, I have to pay Cdn$2.60 and another Cdn$2.60 for the return trip (=~Rs.170). That's where the term Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) comes in. Because $1 worth of services or goods in India are worth more than in the or Canada. An interesting fact to be considered: adjusted for PPP, India is the fourth largest economy in the world!
Yes, it is true that foreign investment drives wages up.
-Jimmy
Re:Hard Life (Score:3, Interesting)
Offshoring puts IT people in the US out of work, permanently (unless they have other skills or the resources to retrain for something that hasn't been offshored yet). Even if they do work again, it is at a lower salary. All that consuming power that IT people had here will be gone. And thus, third world people will be poorer. Not much of a benefit to them, is it?
But it gets more fun. Corps are now eyeing the "new" middle class in India (all those Indian IT people) as their new consumer group. But in order for them to have decent consuming power, they need some money. If you pay them enough to be your consumers, they loose their value as replacements for US workers. The jobs move, followed by the Corps looking for some new consumers to keep them in business.
So the US is now (extrapolating to everything that could be offshored - basically most of the good paying jobs) getting in touch with their inner third worlder. India's bubble has burst, leaving the country devastated. Our corporate locusts have moved on, looking for near slave wage workers and rich consumers, all in the same people.
In days of yore, a primitive form of capitalism was practiced where countries tried to be fairly self sufficient, and maintain a good trade balance: where exports equalled or exceeded imports. Back then, we also had such trite folk wisdom as "customers are always right", and "employees are a valuable resource of the company". Primitive though it may have been, it worked, and the US was mostly prosperous. If it worked for a bunch of rustic former colonial rebels, maybe it would work for India too (once a proud civilization, now fellow former colonial rebels). Then everybody could have jobs and be prosperous.
Hint: it would be nice if people wised up to this before some serious economic damage is done.
"Ridiculous, you have no claim. I'll sue you for interfering with private enterprise."
Kumoyama, Happy Enterprises, "Mothra vs. Godzilla", 1964
Poor, Kumoyama. Lost his "claim" to Mothra's egg. Lost his fortune. Lost his life (to his boss). Let's hear it for "private enterprise"!