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The Internet Technology

India's Digital Village 206

Posted by timothy from the bhoomi-town dept.
sirdude writes "Business Week has a pretty comprehensive story on the impact of projects such as Bhoomi, which are slowly but surely bridging the digital divide in rural India. With entrepreneurial initiatives such as e-choupal, Simputer, and a multitude of other privately-funded projects also beginning to take root, the rural Indian (who comprises about 70% of India's population), is slowly inching his way into the information age. The rest of the third world is watching & waiting, and taking detailed notes :)" And the parts about computerized land records may remind anyone who's read it of Hernando De Soto's The Mystery of Capital .
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India's Digital Village More

India's Digital Village

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  • Taking notes ... (Score:4, Funny)

    by NigritudeUltramarine ( 778354 ) on Friday July 02, 2004 @01:26AM (#9589806)
    The rest of the third world is watching & waiting, and taking detailed notes...
    ... by hand. ;-)
    • OH My, they made a huge misstake. Dont we all know that it's not called "Indian", but "Native American" ??. The article SHOULD read:

      ...Simputer, and a multitude of other privately-funded projects also beginning to take root, the rural Native American (who comprises about 70% of India's population), is slowly inching his way into the information age.

      No wonder the USA is outsourcing to India, its just supporting it's native population!

    • Re:Taking notes ... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Daengbo ( 523424 ) <daengbo&gmail,com> on Friday July 02, 2004 @02:17AM (#9589966) Homepage Journal
      I know that you were joking, but I am going to respond to the quote. The rest of the third world is not waiting and taking notes. Asia has many meetings between the coutnries' respective organizations similar to NECTEC [nectec.or.th] to has out a unified Asian strategy on things like open source software.

      Thailand (which I know more about than the other countries), has had government supported open source for many years, including creating SIS (a Linux distro for use as an internet gateway in schools) and the necessary free internet access for the schools using it. They are on version 4.X now, and the program is at least six years old.
      The Thai gov't also supports low cost computing initiatives from the Ministry of ICT, with full computers running about 11,000 Baht (~US$270), easily financed through the government bank with little hassle.
      To say that other nations are resting on their butts and watching India is a little insulting, don't you think?
      • To say that other nations are resting on their butts and watching India is a little insulting, don't you think?

        It certainly is (although no more offensive than implying that India is a third-world country).

  • well... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Spytap ( 143526 ) on Friday July 02, 2004 @01:29AM (#9589816)
    This will work brilliantly until someone decides to outsource it to California...

  • In other news... (Score:3, Funny)

    by terrymaster69 ( 792830 ) on Friday July 02, 2004 @01:33AM (#9589835)
    BHOOMI patents the process of "online updation".

  • is it improving peoples lives? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 02, 2004 @01:34AM (#9589839)
    Even most amenities are computerised, the time it takes for something to be done is so slow. take for instance the railway reservation which is computerised in india. still it takes 1-2 hours standing in the queue to get the ticket. i think digitalization is of no use if it is in no way improving your life.

    • Re:is it improving peoples lives? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by saurabhchandra ( 415513 ) on Friday July 02, 2004 @01:52AM (#9589895) Homepage
      Your experience is a little dated - now you can just log on to a website like http://irctc.co.in/ [irctc] and book tickets. Its couriered to you in a day. I guess the next step is to allow you to print your own tickets but this is extremely handy too.
    • take for instance the railway reservation which is computerised in india. still it takes 1-2 hours standing in the queue to get the ticket.

      You surely haven't heard of this! [irctc.co.in] You book the tickets online and get it delivered in 48 hours. Takes 3-5 minutes flat.
    • I see... so the 7/8 hours of waiting you had to do before digitization was better. Or the fact that you had to spend days hoping that the broken-down beat up public sector bank would locate your paper-based file. How do people like you manage to get access to a computer?
    • The 1-2 hour wait is not true for all situations. Every place has a peak hour and non-peak hour. In one instance, I made a reservation and came out with a ticket in my hand in 1 minute flat. My average wait time has been about 20 minutes, and I have made many reservations.

      I strongly believe that the computerisation of railway reservations is one of the best things that happened to India. People who believe otherwise probably had no idea of what the system was like earlier, and most probably don't live in

  • zerg (Score:3, Funny)

    by Lord Omlette ( 124579 ) on Friday July 02, 2004 @01:37AM (#9589848) Homepage
    It incorporates the state of the art bio-logon metrics system from Compaq
    haha, Compaq. Those poor bastards are fucked.

    In any case, instead of simputer.org, maybe you wanted this [amidasimputer.com] instead? It seems simputer.org's tech specs are out of date. I'm drooling over the 4200.
    • It incorporates the state of the art bio-logon metrics system from Compaq
      haha, Compaq. Those poor bastards are fucked.
      Let's just hope [cia.gov] they didn't use 30-bit [google.com] arithmetic!
    • I'm drooling over the 4200.
      I don't know if you were being sarcastic when you said this, but so are 4200's. You can get an equivalent model from Dell for US$200 or so less.
      • Yeah, but Dell isn't an Indian company and I gotta represent. Then there's the whole "prison labor" thing. Then there's the 2 years in high school I spent servicing Dell computers...

        Honestly, I won't need a new PDA until my Zire 71 breaks and Palm decides not to replace it.
  • Given the these facts About 70% of the people live in more than 550,000 villages, and the remainder in more than 200 towns and cities.
    Source-O-Factoids [indianchild.com]

  • also the government (Score:5, Interesting)

    by KrisCowboy ( 776288 ) on Friday July 02, 2004 @01:43AM (#9589867) Journal
    The Indian Government is sponsoring a couple of projects which aim at improving the agricultural and living conditions of rural India through the use of Information and Communication Technologies(ICTs). I am currently working as a system developer for one such project, Web-based Information Dissemination System. Nice to see govt. of India taking an inititative, finally.

  • Mr. CEO, don't let your conscience bother you (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Friday July 02, 2004 @01:44AM (#9589874)
    which are slowly but surely bridging the digital divide in rural India

    Don't I seem to recall that in the last election in India, heads rolled because rural residents(who were by far the majority) were pissed off at getting left behind?

    This strikes me as a "don't feel guilty about the fact that your Indian employees make 50 times what the rural Indian farmer does" article.

    And- furthermore-, rural Indian farmers don't need goddamn "ruggedized" linux-flavored PDAs. Clothe them. Get them running water. Get them something resembling health care. Employ them. Educate them. Roughly in that order. Notice nowhere in there was "give them gameboys so they can check their land ownership status".

    Not that we're any better in the US. Teachers may have a PC in every classroom or a shiny lab of computers, but students have to share copies of the book they're reading.

    • Re:Mr. CEO, don't let your conscience bother you (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Roydd McWilson ( 730636 ) on Friday July 02, 2004 @01:54AM (#9589901) Journal
      You know, farmers in countries such as the U.S. make heavy use of computers and the Internet to monitor weather, plan crop cycles, check on the markets, etc. By giving these rural Indian farmers access to that kind of information, the intent is to help them do better business, become better off, and allow the rest to follow. It is much like planting a seed, isn't it?
      • Farmers in the U.S. and Europe also get stupendous amounts of government subsidy, thus screwing both farmers in developing nations, and the taxpayer at home.

        Abolishing farm subsidies would do more for world development than most other proposals, and save first world taxpayers money too boot.

    • Re:Mr. CEO, don't let your conscience bother you (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 02, 2004 @02:28AM (#9589990)
      It's not about ruggedized Linux-flavoured PDAs. The idea of these projects *is* to employ and educate them. I graduated with a Computer Science degree last year from BITS, Pilani, one of India's best engineering colleges. In my final year alone, we had at least 4-5 experts from various companies/NGOs (including e-Choupal, Hewlett-Packard) speak to us about how technology can help the rural population.

      You're right if you think that the people would much rather have fair prices for crops and improved agricultural yields than broadband Internet connections. The point is that these initiatives provide exactly what they want. The most successful projects have typically been those that are implemented by NGOs working at the grassroots level, that arise from a genuine understanding of what farmers need. Ideas like providing high-speed internet access to schools which don't have textbooks and teachers are obviously doomed to failure.

      In large parts of the country, poor farmers are exploited by middlemen who buy their produce at low prices and resell them with a huge mark-up. The farmers often had no option but to trust these middlemen, who lie to them about market rates. The e-Choupal system allows them to find out the going rates at markets nearby and can put them in touch with prospective buyers. Eliminating the middleman and his commission can sometimes double or triple the farmer's profit.
      Again, a farmer with crop trouble (perhaps an unusual pest) had to go a government official for help. By the time the experts decided what could be done and communicated with the official (who would take his own time coming back to the farmer), weeks often elapsed. Now, the farmers fire off an email to the nearest agricultural university, and get a reply the same day with the e-Choupal system.

      Considering that most of these poor farmers are illiterate (or the next thing to it), making these systems usable has taken remarkable ingenuity on the part of the engineers designing them. It takes intuitive user-interfaces to a whole new level!
    • Indian farmers are adults. They can (and should) feed, clothe and take care of themselves. Don't thrust your statist "someone should take care of the poor" nonsense on them.

      Last thing they need is for a ignorant white guy to tell them what their priorities should be!

    • Don't I seem to recall that in the last election in India, heads rolled because rural residents(who were by far the majority) were pissed off at getting left behind?

      That was the theory of cocktail-party columnists who were groping for the most catchy headlines. It's simply not borne out by the numbers. The ruling party (the BJP and allies) lost heavily in the big metros -- Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, and I think even Bangalore and southern Karnataka, though admittedly they never had much presence in

    • And- furthermore-, rural Indian farmers don't need goddamn "ruggedized" linux-flavored PDAs. Clothe them. Get them running water. Get them something resembling health care.

      Computer technology helps largely illiterate Indian dairy farmers [bbc.co.uk] to more effectively get their milk to market and buyers before it sours in the heat.

      Computers are also being used to track Indian cows in a village to allow for better animal husbandry to increase milk production.

      These things raise dairy farmer income, so they can affor

  • When they say... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by acceber ( 777067 ) on Friday July 02, 2004 @01:57AM (#9589912)
    When they say the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer...it's never more evident here. These initiatives are a great source of hope for developing countries.

    Internet users relative to population:
    USA: approx 54%
    Australia: approx 50%
    India: approx 2%

    Source: CIA Factbook

    • Globally, the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting richer.

      But if the both the rich and poor get richer at 5% per year, the gap between them widens each year.

      Moreover, the richer you are, the fewer children you have (especially since 1960), so the poor become a greater proportion of the population w.r.t. the few rich.

      The rich getting richer may be a requirement for the poor to get richer as well, as the rich often are responsible for technological advancements and capital to help the poor get

  • hmm (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 02, 2004 @02:13AM (#9589960)
    As an Indian-American immigrant I'm both pleased and a bit scared ;) my bros are taking my job -- just joking, but in all honestly, seeing how hard my parents worked as 1st gen immigrants to the US, if the poor people in India all of a sudden learn English (decent - not great i'll admit) and computers, you can watch the salaries of programmers in the US stagnate (due to more outsourcing... it's hard to compete with $1 a day for web design - joke :) don't take yourselves so seriuosly slashdotters - you can always get a job at BlockBuster like me).

    on the other hand, it's good that possibly 100-200 million poor poor people (these people maybe have $5 to their name) have a chance to improve their lives - desperate poverty is hard to escape and anything that offers a meager chance of a better life will be studied and digested by them. I hope that they aren't exploited and put into white collar sweat-shops where their job pays them a couple dollars and then most of it goes into "paying" for the computer they are using to do their job (another enless cycle of 'white-collar' poverty) - it's believeable in India because when you have absolutely nothing (not even food) you are willing to do pretty much anything to eat or to have a job. And if you don't like it there are 10-15 people willing to fill your spot. But hopefully by that time, the country's legal system will get a bit better and it can be prevented.

  • Cynicism (Score:5, Insightful)

    by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Friday July 02, 2004 @02:20AM (#9589973) Homepage Journal
    As an Indian, I find the level of cynicism in comments in any article related to India quite surprising (although there are exceptions, like the interview about "onshore insourcing" which was full of positive comments). What's the problem? Is it simply that you're all pissed off about outsourcing and find /. articles about India to be a convenient place to let off some steam? Or are you fundamentally opposed to third world countries doing anything to get out of the muck?

    This is absolutely not a troll, its a perfectly serious question.

    • Re:Cynicism (Score:4, Insightful)

      by thetroll123 ( 744259 ) on Friday July 02, 2004 @02:51AM (#9590049)
      I find the level of cynicism in comments in any article related to India quite surprising

      Amongst a less savvy readership I'd be inclined to agree with you... but here, I think the response you describe is largely from techies who have had the experience of working with Indian firms. They are typically (sweeping generalisation, of course there are exceptions) very eager to please and absolutely useless.

      The firm I'm contracted to at the moment asked me to review some code sent back as a finished product by an Indian software house. It was hilariously bad. I reported back that the time it would take to fix it up would be greater than the time to write it properly from scratch. And I've seen this again and again and again. That's where the cynicism comes from - frustration that a resource which could be useful just isn't and doesn't seem to be improving.

    • Re:Cynicism (Score:3, Insightful)

      by joss ( 1346 )
      Never attribute to malice that which can be reasonably explained by stupidity [ignorance].

    • Re:Cynicism (Score:5, Interesting)

      by civad ( 569109 ) on Friday July 02, 2004 @03:17AM (#9590113)
      I agree. This is a reply to my post about e-voting in India:

      Re: India (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 30, @01:51PM (#9021344) Yes, you're a troll. Your stupid country which doesn't even have running water in many places DEFINITELY didn't get electronic voting right (or at all), so shut the fuck up.

      I have stopped posting on this site (almost) because I see nothing but a bunch of ignorant, arrogant zealots on this site who are biased against ANYTHING that is non-North America/Europe. ---> I am in the US, btw.

      • Re:Cynicism (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Otter ( 3800 ) on Friday July 02, 2004 @06:49AM (#9590690) Journal
        Here are three things that come to mind:

        1) As someone watching from outside the world of computer professionals, it's striking how the people who a few years ago were claiming to have a complete exemption from the laws of economics have suddenly declared themselves a sort of endangered species. My sense is that IT workers and developers have spent decades insisted and being treated as rare artists with irreplaceable skills -- and they're reeling from the sudden realization that pretty much any smart person can learn to manage a server or write scripting code.

        2) Prejudice against Indians and other South Asians is legitimized, especially among liberals, in a way that similar statements about other groups would not be. (eg Hillary Clinton and Gandhi) Why that is is too long to get into here, but that's a large part of why India has been made such a scapegoat by the media.

        3) There's a lot of stress and hostility in US politics today that's gotten displaced into all sorts of different outlets. This is one of them.

        That said, Civad -- while were more than familiar with immigrants who come here, take advantage of our opportunity and hospitality and return nothing but contempt (and the truth is that we don't even expect much more), it does bespeak a bit of a lack of grace on your part.

        • Re:Cynicism (Score:2, Insightful)

          by tarunthegreat2 ( 761545 )
          while were more than familiar with immigrants who come here, take advantage of our opportunity and hospitality and return nothing but contempt (and the truth is that we don't even expect much more), it does bespeak a bit of a lack of grace on your part.

          The fact is that these days, America is NOT very welcoming of immigrants, and this what has lead to offshore outsourcing in the first place. You can't get it done in America, so get it done abroad. So these people are not coming to your country. You want t

    • As an "expatriate" living in another country to that I grew up in, one thing that has really struck me is how strongly stereotypes affect people.

      Basically, people try to fit new information into the stereotype they already have, rather than realising the stereotype is wrong or at least altering it in their minds. Things that don't fit into the stereotype will be dismissed, forgotten or twisted back to fit the stereotype.

      This is sad and infuriating, but unfortunately it is the case with the majority of peo

    • Re:Cynicism (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      And what is _your_ point? Sure people are pissed off about outsourcing but have you stopped to think of the social impacts this has? Have you ever wondered how difficult it must be for some people to train their replacements knowing that their jobs are out the door? and not having a choice about it? Sure the management here has a lot to do with it but don't put your PR Bull $hit on me - Indians claim a lot, deliver crap and then pretend to be offended when people bitch about sub-standard results. (think ab

      • Re:Cynicism (Score:2, Insightful)

        by tarunthegreat2 ( 761545 )
        Sure people are pissed off about outsourcing but have you stopped to think of the social impacts this has?

        You expect me to be bothered about the social impact of outsourcing on you? I'll do that when you wonder about the social impact of subsidizing Rich Western farmers has on Indian Farmers. Or The effect of America supplying Pakistan with F-16s and Stinger missiles.

        Indians claim a lot, deliver crap and then pretend to be offended when people bitch about sub-standard results

        Replace the term "Ind

    • Re:Cynicism (Score:2, Informative)

      by Thimma ( 452218 )
      I have also noticed this among these /. threads. What they think internally and what they speak about others is entirely different. Check this out Let's do a Bangalore: John Kerry [indiatimes.com] from one of your president hope full. Can talk without verifying the facts.

    • Re:Cynicism (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jlusk4 ( 2831 )
      (Waiting for my current http request to finish while I'm profiling the app for memory issues.)

      Well, I should post anonymously, but that's just too cowardly.

      I'm ambivalent about this whole offshoring thing. On the one hand, we're exporting jobs/opportunity/hope and world peace. (My understanding is that the recent difficulties between India and Pakistan are being ended at least in part because IBM and American Express and Citibank picked up the phone and said, "Friends, we love having our back office in

    • Re:Cynicism (Score:4, Interesting)

      by scrytch ( 9198 ) <chuck@myrealbox.com> on Friday July 02, 2004 @10:14AM (#9592108)
      > As an Indian, I find the level of cynicism in comments in any article related to India quite surprising

      Misplaced aggression I guess. Fact is, India's cheap. Pay an Indian a princely wage, with a safe workplace and full benefits ... and it's still cheap. People lose their jobs here to that, and it creates resentment. It's all fairly understandable that people are going to vent their spleen.

      My own source of cynicism, which I'll be arrogant enough to say is not quite as misplaced, is that the savings companies incur will be pocketed by the executives. That's all. Five thousand jobs here and there so the CEO can get a few million in bonuses and sink it all into their mansion or buy some politicians. I have very little faith that the dividends of outsourcing will be recapitalized, but will merely serve to concentrate wealth into an self-perpetuating aristocracy. I just don't see any net benefits on average aside from the fact that people can get even cheaper goods from Wal-mart who will proceed to drive wages ever downward so that people will need to shop there to afford anything.

      I say all this as a die-hard capitalist, because these disparities are ultimately bad for capitalism. I don't think we're all screwed as a result ... though maybe my profession is.

  • Standard responses (Score:5, Insightful)

    by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Friday July 02, 2004 @02:29AM (#9589992) Homepage Journal
    Pre-empting all the knee jerk posters who will claim that rural Indians need food and water first, let me inform you that India already overproduces food; the problem is that the rural folk don't have purchasing power. And the reason they don't is that they don't have tech, and are therefore totally dependent on the urban/industrial sector. So if they are to get food they need more technology, which is what the Indian gov't is trying to do.
    • As opposes to Zimbabwe, where massive farm nationalization by the government has lead to the country producing less than half the food its people need.

      Indian agricultural overproduction and lack of distribution, though, is government caused as well. They overpay farmers to produce, and much grain spoils in storage because of low prices. India is starting to reform though.

  • Atleast someone is trying... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cobra1729 ( 132468 ) on Friday July 02, 2004 @02:33AM (#9590005)
    Of course, we can always point to the negative and say stuff like "what about:

    rooting out corruption?
    solving the water scarcity problem?
    controlling pollution?"

    etc. etc. I am not saying that we should ignore these problems and think the Digital Village is the greatest thing to happen in India. All I am saying is that we should appreciate the efforts and keep on workin to do more good deeds, not belittle the efforts by pointing out existing problems.

    After all, quoting the Batman: "There will always be problems, but every problem has a solution."

    • Gee, I thought we were on Slashdot, where we discuss news relevant for geeks. Whereas the Digital Village is relevant to the Slashdot audience, please kindly explain why Slashdotters would want to know about the regular bunch of 3-rd world problems. Of course, on the other hand you could be somebody who's just trying to be malicious...but as has already been said, never attribute to malice that which can be explained as stupidity...

  • Looks like, in a few years, India might be outsourcing it's IT to America

    :-)

  • Good Example of Computerisation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by toofanx ( 679091 ) on Friday July 02, 2004 @02:50AM (#9590044) Journal
    There have been many articles about India and computers which I had considered to be more of a fad than any real use. However, since I am from Bangalore, Karnataka, I confidently feel that this is one of the best computerization efforts.

    Karnataka had a lot (and still continues to have) land disputes, that should never have happened. Many are simple cases of forgery that become complicated by corrupt/incompetent officials, non-transparent machinery. I see computerization as a good tool to increase transparency, thereby reducing corruption. With computerization, it is actually possible to query the database and ensure that one deed does not overlap another deed.

    Corruption can never be solved by technology. But, if technology is implemented well, it can empower common people (which, in this case, includes me, since I plan to own land in the near future) to fight back against corruption.

    What I am most afraid of, is that power is effectively transferred from corrupt officials to the companies who write/manage the software. So, even if the software companies may be free from corruption, it may not hold good for too long, since "power corrupts". A good criteria would be how transparent is the database.

    However, from what I know, this particular project is a very good initiative, and one of the few projects that can be showcased as an example of computerization that can help the rural poor. True, software cannot feed hungry people, but it can empower them to grow the own food.
    • Boo booo, you Kannadigas are only five years late to the game! We in AP have had this for quite sometime now; it's called CARDS (I think), and it brought down the processing time from one week to five minutes for my new house, back in 2001 itself. :-)

  • Re: India's digital village (Score:4, Interesting)

    by manavendra ( 688020 ) on Friday July 02, 2004 @02:57AM (#9590062) Homepage Journal
    well now, even if some of these projects invite some satire or sarcasm on /. or whether people make foolish observations of "rampant anarchy", etc, the fact remains such projects have been slowly adding up to the nation's wealth, and have been contributing towards improving the quality of life bit by bit:

    1. For the uninitiated, India's general elections (which is the world's largest democracy) were carried out using Electronic Voting Machines, and there were no problems relating to counting or whatever. This has previously been covered here

    2. India has posted a growth of 10.2% in the last fiscal year, and the new Finance Minister is expected to target even higher growth

    3. Projects like Simputer [amidasimputer.com] might not attract customers from more developed countries, but then they are targeted and priced for the local masses.

    4. eChoupal [e-choupal.com] is an initiative to provide farmers of India all the information, products and services they need to enhance farm productivity, improve farm-gate price realisation and cut transaction costs.

    These are just an example of the country-wide measures being adopted as the country is slowly geared towards economic well-being

    • Simputer. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by The Cydonian ( 603441 )
      Simputer as a country-wide measure to improve QoL?

      Whoa there, have you ever seen the Simputer website [industelegraph.com]? Here's a summary:- except for cute Indic marketing, there's in fact zero value that an Amida adds over, say, a Dell Axim, EVEN in terms of pricing.

      I can probably see why you want to "defend" India against trolls (personally, growing immune to the crap these days), but let's use the *right* weapons here shall we? :-)

  • Read DeSoto's "Mystery of Capital" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ebusinessmedia1 ( 561777 ) on Friday July 02, 2004 @04:07AM (#9590252)
    The opening paragraph to this post points to Hernando De Soto's superb book, "The Mystery of Capital" - the result of a many-year research project that he completed in the hope of finding out how to cure the seemingly impossible problems of poverty and underused capital, worldwide. His conclusions are brilliant, insightful, and being adopted by governments worldwide.

    Those prior posters who are complaining about India's lack of political and economic transparency (as well as the same problem in many other poor countries) should read De Soto's book.

    De Soto's goal is to help the poor - and the countries they reside in (including India) unlock dormant intellectual and financial capital.

    Like it or not, India is growing up in ways that will make its poor more enabled - and able to leave poverty behind. Some of this will result in domestic displacement here. That's capitalism, especially when its operating in a way that lets people really *own* something of capital worth, and *leverage* that worth for further wealth.

    Right now, India is learning to leverage intellectual capital, and making flegling attempts to improve the property system - there's no stopping this trend.

    De Soto should win a Nobel prize for his work. His findings are astounding, and so compelling that every page seems a new insight into wire-ranging economic solutions that lie just under the surface.

    What he describes in places like India is an arcane and complex system of underground economies that exist because there is no political/economic structure to permit ownership and transfer of capital. This is a seminal insight.

    In fact, De Soto (who has done his research, exhaustively) shows that America went through the travails of a very non-transparent system of property ownership, and found its way out of it.

    Bottom line: it's the ability of a culture to create transparent infrastructure that enables the ownership and transfer of capital that leads to development, and freedom ("freedom is participation in power" - Cicero (the Roman sage and philosopher).

    Frankly, De Soto's book is one of the most enlightening things I've read on development, ever. It will help the reader understand what prerequisites are necessary to defeat poverty, and enable the poor.

    As I write this, many governments worldwide have brought in De Soto (he's Peruvian) and his teams to help figure out new ways to structure capital ownership and capital transfer (leveraging).

    This will all take time, and will make a huge difference to everyone - inlcuding Americans (in fact, De Soto presents the American experience as a template for how to begin approaching this problem in other places).

    Read the book, and be enlightened.

  • I have given up reading cooments in articles about India. When it is not an Indian zealot saying how great India is for all the things they are doing or are going to do, it is the guy who bashes India for some particular reason. Slashdot should slow down with these articles until the freaks cool down....
    • Slashdot should slow down with these articles until the freaks cool down....

      You must be new here. (I kid!)

      Slashdot depends on ad revenue to survive. Flamebait stories get higher page views, thus more revenue.

  • Good work by NIC (Score:2, Interesting)

    by vcp-in ( 608624 )

    From Bhoomi FAQ [kar.nic.in]

    Who has designed the Bhoomi software?

    The Bhoomi software has been fully designed in house by National Informatics Centre (NIC), Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India.

    NIC [home.nic.in] is doing really good work on behalf of Govt. of India.

    They are planning to develop (or help to develop) web sites [districts.nic.in] with useful information for every district in India (Total no. districts = 601, Districts with websites = 399) [districts.nic.in]

    I think some kind of XML site feed exposing district related data (e.g : n
  • Wasn't "e-choupal" the rude comment made by a silver protocol droid to C-3PO on Bespin?

    No offense intended to my Indian friends, but it just sounds real familiar... :-)

  • grouse but not... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by shakuni ( 644197 )
    I regret that my submission on Bhoomi was rejected in mid 2003. interested /. readers should go to the Bhoomi homepage and read about the project. It is truly fascinating and gigantic in scale.
    http://www.revdept-01.kar.nic.in/

    Techies should make note of the enormous change management, infrastructure and end user adoption issues that are highlighted (dont get turned off by NT, SQL and VB which is what has been used here)

    SOME PROBLEMS FACED

    1 Data entry agencies were not aware of land records Computerisati

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