It may be a mere coincidence that while India has just sent a high-technology, low-cost probe to Mars, the top honchos of the giants of the new economy, like Mr Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Mr Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, have made a beeline to India. Another reason why India is the hot new destination for the tech world is that Mr Narendra Modi used a social platform blitzkrieg like never before in an election that made him Prime Minister. It would be a cliché then to say the Facebook co-founder hit it off with the country’s CEO at a meeting of two men on their remarkable journeys.
The temptation would be to write off such trips to the Prime Minister’s Office in New Delhi by head honchos as their riding a hobby horse or just blatant promotion of their own interests and that of the companies they represent. The significance of such face-to-face meetings lies in what they potentially mean to a developing country in which two-thirds of the population has no access to the modern wonder that is the Internet. A wonderful side-effect of the success stories of the new economy is that entrepreneurs with great new ideas become evangelists of sorts with a new-found zeal to spread the benefits of their inventions.
The boost to Facebook in a highly publicised trip may only be measured over time. However, the more noteworthy feature of Mr Zuckerberg’s visit is his connectivity mission through Internet.org, and his idea that India would be best served by relevant content in several local languages rather than just English or any of the other leading languages on the Net. Imagine the spin-offs if each Indian farmer has access to data from the latest research and useful technical inputs to increase his output, or the poorest student has free access to tutor himself by taking lessons from the Internet from the brightest teachers in the field. Remove the social barriers and reap the benefits, says one of the youngest self-made billionaires.
Governance through the Net may still be in its infancy in India, but modernising it is rather more important than people connecting on social platforms. Imagine the advantage to everyone if the ordinary Indian did not have to go through the tortuous bureaucracy and a minefield of corruption merely to obtain a service from the government like getting a certificate, or accessing land records, or paying taxes without standing in backbreaking queues. Technology is an enabling tool and, if infrastructure issues and the economics are tackled on a war footing, India can reap the whirlwind, enjoying as it does a technological ability to harness the quantum leap in public access that the Internet represents.
