The majority of Indian population lives in villages. In spite of urbanisation and large-scale migration to the cities, this trend is not going to change in the near future. Villages continue to be the archetypal unit which represent our culture and civilisation. Agriculture continues to be the primary source of livelihood for the rural masses. It is by addressing the problems at the village level that we can improve the lot of the common man and achieve our developmental goals. One way of doing it is by providing better telecommunication facilities to the villages.

Development efforts of many countries have not yielded the expected dividends since the importance of human factor was ignored. This was highlighted by the former Secretary General of the United Nations while launching the World Decade for Cultural Development (1988-1999). Mr Perez De Cuellar attributed the failure of many development efforts to the fact that the importance of human factor, that complex web of relationship and beliefs, values and motivations which lie at the very heart of a culture, had been underestimated in many development projects. So if our developmental efforts have to succeed, we must attach due importance to human factor in the rural sector since a majority of our population resides in villages.

There is another dimension which has broadened the scope of development itself. Initially development was synonymous with economic development but ever since it was realised that the economic criterion alone was insufficient to sustain a programme of development, the concept of development was widened to include the right of every human being to exist with dignity and well-being including his cultural rights. Freedom of expression is one of the pillars of every civilized society. Mutual knowledge of cultures, respect for others, promotion of cultural diversity and prevention of conflicts are essential factors for economic and social development. Fundamentally, they rest on the exercise of freedom of expression. In this context, communication and information technologies assume great importance.

Information and communication technologies today are what industrial machines were for the industrial revolution in the last century. In today’s economy they are the engines of growth and also vehicles of power and wealth. They offer the great advantage of freeing people from the tyranny of geography. In such an environment where information and knowledge are crucial for economic and social development, unequal distribution and sharing of information and communication technologies and access to information could distort the information society. To overcome this shortcoming, all countries have made Universal Service as their long term objective of the telecommunication policy. In other words, it means that communication facilities must be made available to every member of the society on an individual or household basis. Provision for universal service will facilitate an integrated rural development.

Information economy has opened up untold opportunities for mankind to create new forms of wealth. The information and communication revolution has transformed information into a commodity since the raw material of knowledge is information. This development portends enormous advantages for a poor country like India. We can transform our knowledge into wealth. Our indigenous knowledge is very rich. It is reflected in the traditions, customs and folklore of our villagers. It is embedded in the minds of our village folk. This indigenous knowledge can be turned into wealth through educating the rural masses and also giving wider telecommunications access to them.

Access to information and knowledge constitutes a global public good and is essential to the advancement of education, science, culture and communication to empowerment, to the promotion of cultural diversity and to fostering open governance. This is the mandate of UNESCO. We must reinforce our efforts to broaden the range of languages available on the Internet.

The digital revolution is a revolution fathered by the Indian brains. So we should make the best out of this revolution. The digital revolution will modify the exercise of democracy. It brings about a more direct link between citizens and the State. Access to administrative services will become faster, access to justice can be simplified. Every individual will have the opportunity of participating in an active, more transparent and more effective form of citizenship. If we can push our agenda vigorously with the rustic common man in the village as the ultimate beneficiary of all our developmental efforts, we will eradicate poverty, hunger and disease. This was the dream of our founding fathers and will herald the dawn of the golden age of our nation. If this dream is realised, India will emerge as one of the main players in the global knowledge economy.