Digital delusions in the South

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Digital technology in its current corporate form is irrelevant to a wide cross-section of the populace. What can be done to salvage it and orient it towards the objectives of development?

The digital hype in South Asia has been around for close to a decade now and there is no end in sight. Institutions, agencies and organisations concerned with digital policy, implementation, lobbying, education and dissemination have mushroomed across the technologically-arid landscape of the Subcontinent, promising "giant leaps" and cutting-edge developments that claim to bring all manner of electronic conveniences to "village South Asia". The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), whose annual Human Development Reports (HDR) over the last few years have provided the clearest indicators of social and economic disparities between and within countries, is another recent high-profile convert to the digital cause. Thus, even those who deal in poverty eradication and sustainable development have now come around to accepting the technocratic route to their objectives.

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