Diminishing Disparities with Digital Literacy in India

Would you prefer a precise byname 'Digital Literate' for being a blogger? Or would you like being acknowledged as the one who is constantly glued to their smartphone, tablet and adept laptop?

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The significance of Technology is extensive in today’s world. You could talk to a person from any part of the world, lead a social virtual life via networking and be vocal about issues you either support or detest. To be true, there is nothing you could not do with Technology.
With these added neologies, I was introduced to the term while I was working with Mumbai & Ahmedabad's popular publication house, for their e-learning subsidiary.
I was majorly exposed to the creation of e-learning content, and for that I had to be efficient enough to be a 'Digital Literate', ofcourse my knowledge of being Digital was redefined.
And to add, my knowledge of 'Digital Literacy' was fostering e-learning to classrooms.
I scrutinized Intel India's program to support the Digital Literacy in India inclusive of the rural areas.

E-governance is a connecting link between the Government and citizens of India. So if we trace the past, E-governance was introduced back in the late 60’s emphasizing Economy, Taxes and Defence services. Later in 2006, National E-governance plan was introduced to add feasibility of Government services to reach common man easily. But the major back draw in a developing country like ours is the ease of accessibility to all citizens and a medium to spread awareness about E-governance.
The primary goal of E-governance is to provide a user friendly platform for the citizens from all economic backgrounds to interact with the Government with regards to put forward issues or suggestions.

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Being fair and square, witnessing a bit of Technology being introduced in public transports like Kiosk Automated Ticket vending machine or Metro Trains makes travelling so much easier.
So consider the amount of ease we experience while paying our water or electricity bills on time, taxes, making travel arrangements online. But then not many people could afford internet or smartphones to ease the access to all these portals. So our honourable Prime Minister Modi’s Digital India Project aims at ensuring that every citizen of India has a smartphone by the year 2019. A One Lac Crore project by E-Kranti or E-Governance for the development of  E-India.
According to the statistics, around 74% of Indian population comprising mostly the urban parts have mobile phones.

A Brief introduction of the Digital India Plan:
~Providing Public wifi to all the cities inclusive of tourist attractions.
~Introducing Internet in the Rural Parts covering around 2.5 lac villages.
~Easy Passports online
~ Approximately 250,000 Goverment Schools will be introduced to e-Learning by providing free Wi-Fi and broadband connectivity.
~E-books or Electronic version of School Texts and books will be available.

Intel India supports and has committed to the Digital India’s vision by working to impact 5 million citizens with skills. An App Intel® Learn Digital Skills has been launched and is available for free on Google Playstore. The app is user friendly with 6 regional languages: English, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil and Kannada.
The app guides the users from how to create an email account to how to pay their bills online. Searching and applying for Jobs has been made easier.
I downloaded the app in my tablet as well as in my father’s smartphone who well is very tech savvy. I am teaching my mother to pay the bills online with this app, and she would use ‘Marathi’ language for her ease.



Taking today’s scenario of Technology being a revolution into consideration. I am convinced of all the phases of growths we would be observing that will result into a successful intervention. There are instances of Intel’s successful projects, eKutir being one of them.
Intel had introduced eAgriculture ecosystem in Odisha in 2009 called eKutir. The farmers were trained to adopt a new method of cultivation in paddy fields by investing less money and yielding more.
And the project resulted in a great impact on society with successful collaboration of two equally powerful mediums: Technology and Farmers with assurance of achieving better food security with creating jobs and encouraging long term growth on economic front.

Notwithstanding the results of the Digital India project with Intel, I am listing down my contemplative results and drawbacks:

~ Increase in Literacy rate in India
I am not considering merely the Digital Literacy but Literacy as whole.
With Intel and Bharat Broadband Network Ltd (BBNL), Broadband Highways will be delivered to the Rural parts of India. With the introductions of E-Learning, there will an assured interest in education among the rural students.
Intel India mastered the Intel Learn Programme and Intel Teach Programme (National Digital Literacy Mission) in 2012.

 ~ Corruption under Control
With E-Governance, all the processes will be transparent which would provide very less scope for corruption and other such operations. By eradicating Corruption from the system, the economy will be moving into a better phase of growth on the global level.

~Hopefully a cleaner, greener environment
In honour of Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of ‘Clean India’, Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan is evoking an interest in the citizens to keep the surroundings and neighbourings clean, collectively keeping our India clean and trash free. Planting Trees and adding greenery to lower the percentage of pollution is also promoted.
The Intel® Learn Digital Skills app also provide the commoners with importance of cleanliness and the suggestive methods.

~Infrastructure issues and Digitization
Sometime back I read about the news of predictive Earthquake, with Mumbai being at risk. A certain Geologist had put forth his suggestive measure to be applied in the engineering of construction.
Building Infrastructures that could result in a better way of tackling disaster management would save many lives.

~Tackling the problems of Unemployment
With adoption of so many initiatives, there will be an increase in the number of employment opportunities and a boost to the local economy.

~ Increase in the number of Public Transport Commuters
The advancement of Public transportation will encourage people to take public transport instead of private. For instance, Metros are a great way to save time in travelling, traffic and else. Also introducing Monorails will further encourage people to take public transport which will help strengthen the local economy.

~ Rolling Blackout as a major drawback
In the current Rural scenario, many villages face perpetual rolling blackouts or lack power supply. So considering everything to be digital I am hoping there would be fundamental power supply. Even to charge mobile phones or laptops, we would primarily need power supply.

And concluding with Moore’s Law: Over the history of computing Hardware, the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years.
I am visioning the success of Digital India in the coming years when there are better job opportunities, diminishing differences between the Urban and Rural India, 100% Literacy rates throughout India, Zero Corruption and mostly a much better and a greener Country to live in.
So why not be a responsible citizen and take few measures yourself:
By not littering the roads, by using the disposal bins or carrying the waste papers/wrappers in the corner of your bag.
By not wasting electricity. Even in public transports by abiding the instructions of switching of fans in trains/stations when not in use.
By planting trees, at least once a year on your birthday so that your kids could breathe in a better environment.
And we might just see a few more equally urbane voices raising and suggesting from the all the parts of India, that we consider ‘Rural’  today.

To know more about #DigitalIndia visit:http://www.intel.in/