The benefits of the internet economy, from a dramatic fall in money-transfer costs to being able to access low-cost education content online, are well-known, but the issue is how many Indians will benefit from this despite the very high penetration of mobile phones. One graphic in the World Bank’s Digital Dividends report says it all. At $52 billion, it shows India is the world’s second-largest ICT exporter but, at anywhere between 900 million and 1 billion, India has the world’s largest population that does not have access to the internet. Raising internet availability is an issue — just 4% of India’s population has 4G internet versus 95% for China and data usage charges are 6-10 times higher. But, as the bank points out, the bigger issue is of making Indians internet-ready in terms of their relative skill sets.
In the net age, Indians out of the net
The benefits of the internet economy, from a dramatic fall in money-transfer costs to being able to access low-cost education content online, are well-known, but the issue is how many Indians will benefit from this despite the very high penetration of mobile phones.
This article was first uploaded on May eleven, twenty sixteen, at thirty-two minutes past six in the morning.