Like other Indians with access to the internet, I could read every prurient detail of Ken Starr's report before most Americans awoke to see it in their newspapers. Every morning, I read theNew York Times, theWashington Postand almost any other foreign newspaper I want to on my laptop. I no longer use the Indian postal service to send letters, I use e-mail.And nothing gives me more pleasure than calling someone on my mobile phone while driving along some kuccha road in the wilds of rural India. Even more pleasure when I remember that till five years ago if you left one of our bigger cities you were at the mercy of the Telecom Department and its cruelly named "lightning calls".What can I tell you of the desperate hours hacks like me have spent in tiny CPOs (central post offices) in places like Srinagar and Amritsar trying to file stories via those lightning calls? The alternative, till not so long ago, was ancient telex machines. They were even more frustrating than lightning calls.How quickly technology has changed our lives. When I travel these days to even the remote parts of our fair and wondrous land, I get my news on CNN, BBC and Star News. No longer do I need to rely on Doordarshan and its censored bulletins. It isn't just me. For the average Indian too, satellite television has opened up unimaginable horizons.In villages which did not know where the nearest town was, they now see pictures of distant wars and gaze in wonder at countries which no longer have open drains, kuccha roads or children in rags. Television has changed their lives in more ways than you and I can think of. Shampoo and soap are now sold across rural India and standards of hygiene have improved hugely..preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;}More important though is the improvement in standards of awareness. When I cover elections these days, I find people more conscious of their rights and far more aware of the failures of their political leaders. Could this be the reason why our Government still spends so much time trying to restrict our access to technology?The two ministries currently most energetic in trying to curb the communications revolution are, ironically, Information & Broadcasting and Communications. The minister in both cases is Sushma Swaraj. Unhappily for us, Swaraj is one of the world's moral policewomen and like all moral types, her priorities are inclined to be confused.So although she can be vociferous about vulgar advertisements and phone-sex services (which she recently restricted), ask her about something like Iridium and she is likely to turn to her bureaucrats for help. With the result that certain bureaucrats have succeeded in delaying a project in which crores of rupees have already been invested.Iridium is a satellite telephone project which some 100 countries have already subscribed to. The Indian Government also gave the project a letter of intent five years ago. After that, its financial institutions invested in 80 per cent of Iridium India's equity. This company was then granted permission to invest $70 million to buy its share of equity in the global company.In other words, vast amounts of taxpayers' money have already been spent on a project that could have put India on the cutting edge of telecommunications. It could also have earned much money for the country because Iridium India had plans to provide gateway services to the south-Pacific and, afterwards, to Africa and West Asia. But guess what happened? The Communications Ministry decided - after wasting all this money - that it needed more time to draft a policy before it granted Iridium India permission to start operating. The company applied for a licence three years ago and is still waiting.So Iridium India will be left behind while companies from other countries get ahead. The 66 satellites the project needs are already up, and a soft launch is scheduled for September 23. By November, the project will begin operating commercially. The tragedy is Iridium India will eventually get its licence but only after precious time and resources have been wasted.This is how it has always been. In 1997, the United Front government prevented DTH (direct to home) television services. Again, for no obvious reason other than the fact that some bureaucrats had a vested interest in preventing DTH - and the information and broadcasting minister wasn't clever enough to outwit them.Stories of such ludicrous attempts to obstruct new technology go back even further. When satellite television arrived and companies like Star wanted to uplink from India, we said, "No." They went to Hong Kong and other places and other countries made the money we could have. Guess what? Now Swaraj is insisting everyone uplink from here.The worst of it is that we no longer need either a Ministry of Information and Broadcasting or a Ministry of Communications. Information ministries have been irrelevant ever since information stopped being something governments could control. That apart, the sooner the Government gets out of trying to provide telephone services the better it is for everyone.Yet, we continue to waste vast amounts of money on ministries whose only job seems to be to waste even more money. Is India really poor or has it been deliberately impoverished by our bureaucrats?Published By: AtMigration Published On: Sep 28, 1998--- ENDS ---
