[wsfii-discuss] the cooperative way for India?

Thu Jun 22 19:41:16 UTC 2006

Thanks for this mind-focussing exercise, Arun. May I venture some remarks-

Clearly telecoms and rural connectivity is a matter of immense strategic 
importance in India, demanding the in-puts, the efforts, and the 
collaboration of all stakeholders.

Politics and power also intervene to upset the rosy view of an equality of 
stakeholder interests. So that situations have a political algorithm all of 
their own. Don't take your eyes off the incumbent (- both telco and 
government). The market situation prevails (from "market failure", to 
incumbent's roll-out). Not to mention Naxalism. All in all a political 
scenario deserving of debate in such terms as "the transition from feudalism 
to capitalism?" (- and re-read your Eighteenth Brumaire and Class Struggles 
in France).

Perhaps one worthwhile contribution of our own voluntary advocacy community 
can be to highlight case studies and best practice.

The article Arun points us to clearly highlights the social dynamics and 
sustainability issues that are critical, as opposed to defining this as a 
"technology" issue per se.

As to waiting upon government efforts, a point Arun touches upon- well, the 
main lessons of Djursland, and as I later learnt from Onno's Indonesian 
projects, was that civil society initiatives can be pathbreakers 
independently of official government efforts, eventually forcing government 
to respond. Governments can declare a leadership role, but in practice they 
rarely deliver on this (as Arun's remarks highlight), rather they have a 
strong tendency to lock people into a dependency relationship with 
government, and ultimately frustrate expectations. Not to mention the whole 
balancing of the relationship of government and incumbent telco, which seeks 
to control the pace of change. Hence a joint strategy of local projects and 
bottom-up pressure, plus lobbying government from the top-down (eg in the 
strategic matter of spectrum management policy).

Beyond Metcalfe's law concerning the value of networks, there is Reed's 
Third Law (David P Reed) regarding the group forming activities of networks 
and their related exponential growth in value. (Reed co-authored the 
"end-to-end thesis" regarding the value of the end-to-end connection of 
Internet through the TCP/IP neutral transport layer; and the group-forming 
aspect of networks extends the view beyond a connection of the individual 
end-to-end nodes to an activation of group interests and dynamics; though my 
reading of this appears to me to be more sociological than the mathematical 
focus of some commentators). The ad hoc, internationally dispersed community 
that formed around the Djursland convention and this discussion list is an 
example of a common interest group that relates to a network potential.

Given the clear need for connectivity in rural India, I'd suggest that a 
bold "Community First Mile" strategy is a strategic proposition. One would 
not be short of common interest groups forming in no end of places! The 
challenge will be to keep up with the demand.

There is sufficient international experience by now to begin to highlight 
best practice and clarify appropriate strategies. Members of this list may 
remember the session on "The Community First Mile: Strategies for Broadband 
Access" at Djursland, and especially Dave Hughes' perspective that around 
60% of the problem is generic (technology etc), whilst the critical 40% that 
makes or breaks a project is specific to the concrete case in point- local 
geography, politics, language, culture, business traditions, regulatory 
arrangements, etc. Its always a case of local solutions to local problems.

I don't have the resources to attend wsfii Dharamsala. My testimony from the 
UK - at this retrospective point- would be in terms of community-first-mile 
projects seizing an initiative in the national space (at a time when "market 
failure" prevailed), followed by government-telco retrenchment (-the market 
is the structure in dominance). It goes without saying that the vested 
interests in telecoms are formidable. I also participated in debate earlier 
this year on the "net neutrality" agenda in the US, and observed that 
advocates there did not readily engage with the question of organisation to 
spearhead a campaign/civil society initiative (-perhaps geography and scale 
militate against such coalition building in the US, perhaps a culture of 
entreprenuerialism and business works against co-operative and social 
initiatives as a first-impulse). Here in Wales, one can note a significant 
degree of success when a project was defined more fully in social terms, of 
social needs and service delivery for socially disadvantaged groups 
(-skills, education, training), as opposed to "telecoms, infrastructure, 
broadband". The "Social Justice" division of government may well have a more 
open and pressing agenda and forthcoming response than the 
"telecoms/infrastructure" division.

Maybe members of this list and the Djurslands Institute have already put 
their minds to addressing the issues of case study, best practice and 
strategy? (Note: The Cook Report on Internet recently focussed upon some 
large scale regional projects in India).

Cheers,
John
http://johnrichardwilson.googlepages.com/home

>From: "Arun Mehta" <arunlists at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: Discuss list on the World Summit on Free Information 
>Infrastructure<wsfii-discuss at lists.okfn.org>
>To: india-gii at cpsr.org, "Discuss list on the World Summit on Free 
>Information Infrastructure"<wsfii-discuss at lists.okfn.org>
>Subject: [wsfii-discuss] the cooperative way for India?
>Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 23:15:48 +0530
>
>Leading up to the World Summit on Free Information Infrastructures,
>wsfii.org, in Dharamsala, international participants may be interested
>in understanding the rural connectivity situation in India.
>
>The article below is right, when it says that mostly so far, all we
>have had is pilot projects, and lots of conferences. The government is
>indeed trying to set up 100,000 telecenters, but so far, two years
>after Mission 2007 was launched, there is little evidence of anything
>on the ground. At the London wsfii, I predicted, hoping to be proved
>wrong, that not much would have been achieved by the government bythe
>time of the 2006 wsfii. Actually, a lot less has been achieved, than I
>expected.
>
>As regards viability, why do we forget Metcalfe's law: the value of a
>network is proportional to the square of its size? In other words,
>viability will improve dramatically if we network all 600,000 instead
>of just one-sixth: if 6 villages share a telecenter, a lot of the
>business will be lost: all the communications between the 6! People
>surely communicate with neighboring villages a lot more than they do
>with people far away. The old and the disabled will not be able to use
>a telecenter, unless it is in their own village.
>
>The Dharamsala WSFII could not be happening at a more opportune time,
>to point out another way. No longer do we need large telcos to
>condescend to provide connectivity to villages. People can do it
>themselves, as the airjaldi network in Dharamsala and others around
>the world so ably demonstrate.
>Arun
>
>http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1648695.cms
>Rural connect: The cooperative way
>MOHAN MISHRA
>
>On the face of it, the growing Naxalite menace may be treated as a law
>and order problem. But the root cause of the issue, as articulated by
>Dr MS Swaminathan, the father of Green Revolution, is: "Ignore
>farmers, see Red spread". Naxalism, along with farmers' suicides, are
>only the visible symptoms of a deeper disease: the worsening plight of
>agriculture dependent population and widening urban-rural disparities.
>
>To see how stark these disparities are, just take a look at the
>teledensity figures. Despite the euphoria over recent telecom growth,
>rural teledensity remains a measly 2% compared to 31% in urban areas.
>The teledensity growth in the country has been led by higher urban
>volumes while large parts of rural India still remain unconnected.
>
>Rural development is an urgent need and towards that goal, connect-ing
>the villages is the first step. There has also been a growing interest
>from all quarters including numerous corporates, in solving the
>problems of rural India using Information and Communication Technology
>(ICT). While there have been a slew of initiatives and announcements,
>substantive results have been far and few.
>
>One reason is that many tend to treat the matter as primarily a
>technology issue. The solutions offered would, therefore, have been
>around innovation at the product level and range from the earlier
>Simputers to the recent $100 laptop.
>
>These are only some options to the challenge of connecting villages.
>Very few have attempted to put together an integrated solution to
>overcome the challenge of connecting rural India. Second,
>sustainability remains a major stumbling block in the game of rolling
>out rural kiosks.
>
>No one has still found a satisfactory answer to the issue. Says Dr MS
>Swaminathan, whose MSSRF village kiosks are an industry forerunner:
>"Economic sustainability may not happen in immediate terms, but it is
>more a question of social sustainability."
>
>Pankaj Baveja, founder of Project Param, and a pioneer in rural
>computing, endorses these views, but adds: "That does not mean that
>solutions to sustainability are not possible. Issues are not so much
>to do with choices in technology and connectivity.
>
>It is more to do with ownership-operations model and with the nuances
>in implementation." Third, with the trend of showcasing, only
>conferences and seminars have been proliferating while there hasn't
>been substantive work on field.
>
>For substantive achievements in connecting rural India, a way forward
>may be the cooperative way. A shining example of marriage of
>technology with cooperative linkages for real grassroots
>transformation is Amul.
>
>Its manufacturing facilities are a point of envy for even the western
>world, and so are its IT-enabled logistics. In the words of the Amul
>CEO BM Vyas: "Amul is not a food company. It is an IT company in the
>food business". That is true rural empowerment using ICT.
>
>Cooperatives have been deeply entwined with the lives of rural people,
>fostering economic activity with linkages extending right up to the
>grassroots level. They have been playing an important role in rural
>development.
>
>Not many may be aware that in the country there are over 5 lakh
>cooperative societies with membership exceeding 22 crore. But more
>important, the principles of equity along with economic growth are
>embodied in the basic co-operative structures, and hence the
>co-operative way is the natural way for rural development -- and for
>reducing disparities.
>
>Recognising the need for rural development, the government is doing
>its bit by launching a bold initiative of setting up 100,000 Common
>Service Centres by 2007. Pankaj Baveja, says: "The needs in the
>vil-lages are so high that this programme is bound to deliver positive
>re-sults. So, progress it must in its implementation."
>
>The task of rural development requires a concerted cooperative effort
>and participation from all quarters. Along with the government and the
>co-operative sector, private industry needs to come forward to
>contribute substantively towards rural transformation, taking things
>beyond limited CSR activities.
>
>The visionaries and captains in the industry need to look at rural
>India -- not as mere markets -- but as investments. And this they need
>to do in their enlightened self interest. That may just be the key to
>sustain-able rural transformation.
>
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