India's Gandhi warns against digital divide

Indian opposition leader Sonia Gandhi, appearing in public in 1999

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -- Indian opposition leader Sonia Gandhi said on Friday that the state must intervene to arrest a divide between those riding the crest of the country's information technology boom and millions of poor.

Millions still had no access to drinking water, sanitation and education and their lives had not been touched by technological advances, Congress Party president Gandhi said.

"Part of India cannot march forward to the 21st century, while the remaining part is left mired in the 18th century," the widow of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi said in a speech on India in the new millennium.

India is currently exporting $4.0 billion worth of software a year and expects to raise this to some $50 billion by 2008.

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The government, a late convert to the domestic software industry's prowess, has pinned its hopes on the sector to move the economy to a high-growth path.

Gandhi, who usually limits her public appearances to political meetings, said it was wrong to think that the knowledge economy would on its own lift people out of poverty.

"Active intervention will be needed, by the state and by NGOs (non-governmental organizations), by civil society in general. This is something all of us individually and collectively owe to society and posterity," she said.

Women, as the most underprivileged, were especially vulnerable, she said.

"This hype about information, communications and entertainment to my mind is somewhat misplaced when figures tell us that the female literacy rate in some Indian districts is less than five percent and that women have to walk 10 kilometers for some firewood or some water," she said.

India's growth as a powerhouse of information technology was also hobbled by a lack of telephone lines and low computer penetration, the Congress leader said.

India has 22 telephone lines per 1,000 people compared with 70 in neighboring China, and three personal computers per 1,000 compared with nine in China.

"How can we expect to exploit knowledge with these kinds of penetration ratios?" she said.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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