-The Hindu Rural web access will grow on availability of content in languages including Hindi, Tamil India is expected to see an unprecedented boom in the number of Internet users over the next few years but for a host of Internet companies it means a wholesale change in the language in which they engage with their potential new consumers. According to a November report by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IMAI),...
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Lower spectrum cost, right of way for cheaper access to Internet -Nikhil Pahwa
-Hindustan Times During his town hall address at IIT Delhi, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said: “Those who don’t have access to the internet cannot sign online petitions.” But how can he decide what is best for them? Recent research by Amba Kak at the Oxford Internet Institute found that financially constrained users prefer buying shorter duration Internet plans (e.g. three days) with all access, as opposed to WhatsApp-only plans that are...
More »Jairo Castano, FAO senior statistician and leader of the Census & Surveys team, interviewed by Down to Earth
-Down to Earth From providing agricultural information for specific countries to identifying trends in the sector, censuses serve a variety of purpose In the backdrop of a round of country-driven agricultural censuses which will begin in 2016 to gather information and statistics on the global agriculture sector, senior FAO statiscian Jairo Castano discusses with Down To Earth the importance of the exercise. * How helpful are agricultural censuses in gathering information and statistics...
More »Preethi Herman, who heads the largest online social change portal in the country, speaks to Nikita Lamba
-Tehelka As change.org starts its Hindi version, Preethi Herman, who heads the largest online social change portal in the country, speaks to Nikita Lamba about how ordinary people are being empowered to bring about the changes they want to see. * What drove you to start this venture in Hindi considering that the netizens of today’s world use English for communication? The lingua franca of about 47 percent of India’s internet population is...
More »Access at the cost of Net neutrality? -Suhrith Parthasarathy
-The Hindu In the Net neutrality debate, there is a conflict between two core values: ease of access and neutrality. The ease of access promised by applications like Free Basics compromises neutrality and may later morph into a method of predatory pricingIf programs that bring access to a part of the Internet in the immediate future were to entrench themselves, it could eventually lead to telecom companies abusing their dominant positionsIn...
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