Processing records, keeping track of back-office operations, besides services such as airline reservations are all operations which cost a fraction in India of what they cost in advanced nations. There has been a slow but steady movement of this essentially clerical work to this country, keeping in mind its huge manpower of English-knowing clerical labour. Cheap telecommunication is essential for this business to grow.

But thereis another, more fundamental sense in which telecom and Internet are different. That is because they enjoy what economists call network externalities. The sum value of a network rises as the number of nodes in the network goes up arithmetically, the value of network rises exponentially. This is true for any network, whether telephones, or Internet. Networks are self-reinforcing virtuous circles-each additional member boosts the network's value, which in turn attracts new members.

The law of increasing returns operates in a big way. And opportunities from harnessing these new technologies are immense. For these reasons the focus must be on freeing these new technologies from all obstacles, and giving them special and differential treatment.