[Ilugc] [OT] India at the bottom of the Information Society Index
- From: siva@xxxxxxxxxxx (Sivasankar Chander)
- Date: Mon Nov 8 16:04:41 2004
http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=13606262
India ranks 51 in global high-tech polls
Among the top 20 nations, Denmark displaced Sweden for the top slot,
followed by United States at 3rd position and Switzerland, Canada,
Netherlands, Finland, Korea, Norway, UK, Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore,
Austria, Germany, Belgium, New Zealand, Japan, France and Taiwan in that
order.
I guess there are not many surprises here - to be able to use IT effectively
requires a society that wants to create more free time through efficiency
and productivity for a higher quality of life. That's simply not a priority
for most of India - there's an intrinsic belief in the fallacy that toil
and drudgery is a difficult-to-practice virtue: witness the frequent lament
that Indians dislike working *hard*, as if hard work was a desirable ideal.
Nobody ever laments the fact that Indians are unable to work *smart*, and
leverage advances in technology that may have occurred elsewhere, through
free trade, rapid adoption of automation, acquisition of capital assets at
favourable prices, etc. (there some exceptions - VSNL and Reliance buying
transcontinental fibre at fire-sale prices may be one of these *working
smart* exceptions, but it's too early to say).
I'd rate Japan much higher than 18, and certainly higher than Singapore
and Hong Kong on the list, though.
-Siva
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