India’s digital transformation

The country can only derive the digital dividend of faster growth, more jobs and better services by expanding affordable Internet access to all/

There is little doubt that China has stolen a march on India when it comes to leveraging the Internet. Of the top 20 Internet companies in the world, 13 are American, five are Chinese, with one each for Japan and the United Kingdom. Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce company, has a market capitalisation that is 25 times higher than that of Flipkart, the largest e-commerce company in India.

Why did India, which has had the remarkable achievement of being the largest exporter of information technology services and skilled manpower among developing countries, fall behind China in digitally transforming its economy? Is it now making a comeback? The World Bank’s recently released World Development Report (WDR) ‘Digital Dividends’ provides some answers.

The WDR finds that digital technologies have spread rapidly throughout much of the world, but their digital dividends — the broader development benefits from using these technologies — have lagged behind. In many instances digital technologies have boosted growth, expanded opportunities, and improved service delivery. Yet their aggregate impact has fallen short and is unevenly distributed.

The report argues that for digital technologies to confer their full benefit on society, it is vital to close the digital divide, especially in Internet access. But greater digital adoption will not be enough. To get the most out of the digital revolution, countries also need to work on its “analogue complements” — by strengthening regulations that ensure competition among businesses, by adapting workers’ skills to the demands of the new economy, and by ensuring that government institutions and others are accountable.

Read the center page article

No Pill for this Ill

Does the medical profession really want society to be healthy?

 

Does this world, where business and money interests are supreme, want society to be healthy and tranquil? The answer is a big NO. No one wants to break her/his own rice bowl. The pharmaceutical industry, the most powerful lobby in the world today—thrice as big and powerful as the oil industry—will certainly not want people to be healthy. The medical profession is trying its best to make more and more people come into their net by ‘regular health check-ups’ of the healthy, run for the heart, run for cancer and so on; it is also doing its best to create iatrogenic illnesses. Hospitals, especially the corporate ones, seek more surgical post-operative complications, as the latter nets more money into their kitty than the original surgery itself.

 

Last year’s budget to treat non-fatal adverse drug reactions (ADRs) in Europe alone was $80 billion! Please give me one good reason why anyone should want to treat simple acne with azithromycin; but that is exactly what is done and on a long-term basis. A recent issue of The Times of India, in a front page news report, mentioned a study done in one Delhi medical college hospital, which showed that all (did I say all?) germs in the acne now have become resistant to azithromycin, a high-end antibiotic reserved for respiratory infections like pneumonia! Antibiotics are the time bombs waiting to explode anytime now.

 

Read the full article 

The rise and fall of television in India

Why does TV focus endlessly on the deeds of the least inspiring section of our society, the politicians?

A friend of mine recently donated her TV set to her maid. She says: “I felt depressed, even disgusted, by what I saw on TV.” Today, she is a happier and more positive person. “I’ve more time than before,” she says, “for friends, for travel, for walks and concerts and other simple pleasures.”

She isn’t alone. Others haven’t actually given away their TV sets but have stopped watching it. They do so only for the occasional movie, or for news of a major event.

I agree with my friend about the pernicious effects of television. TV channels are loaded with negativity. To be fair to them, they can do nothing about natural disasters (floods, earthquakes, tsunamis…) or about inhumanity (terrorist strikes, coups, violence, corruption, crime, rape…).

Read the Open Page article published in TH dt 7th Jul 2015