Table of Contents

Preface Introduction: ICTs and Indian Social Change-An Agenda of Concerns - Ashwani Saith and M Vijayabaskar Culture of Technology and ICTs - Sundar Sarukkai Sustainable Internet Connectivity in Rural India - Ashok Jhunjhunwala and Anuradha Ramachandran Two Mutually Reinforcing Applications of ICT for Socio-Economic Development of India - Rajesh Jain, Atanu Dey, Reuben Abraham and Vivek Padmanabhan ICTs and Poverty Alleviation: Hope or Hype? - Ashwani Saith Decrypting E-Governance: Narratives Power Play and Participation in the Gyaandoot Intranet - T T Sreekumar Crossing a Chasm: Technologies, Institutions and Policies for Developing a Regional IT Industry - Nirvikar Singh The Electronic Grassrooting of Democracy: A Case for Community Radio - Vinod Pavarala Wired Watchdogs: How ICTs Are Aiding Civil Society to Enhance Public Accountability - Gopakumar Krishnan Influence of Software Trade on Development of Web-Enabled Governance Initiatives: Comparative Perspectives of Indian and UK Experiences - Amit Mitra and A Didar Singh Evaluating the Developmental Impact of E-Governance Initiatives: An Exploratory Framework - Shirin Madon Ricocheting Gender Equations: Women Workers in the Call Centre Industry - Piush Antony and V Gayathri Constructing Work and Identity Indian outsourced ITES Sector - M Vijayabaskar Ethnic Transnational Middle Classes in Formation: A Case Study of Indian Information Technology Professionals - Xiang Biao Virtual India: Indian IT Labour and the Nation-State - Peter Van der Veer Uncanny Networks: Pirate, Urban and the New Globalisation in India - Ravi Sundaram Index

About the Author

Ashwani Saith is concurrently Professor of Rural Economics at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, and Professor of Development Studies at the London School of Economics. He has taught and researched on a range of themes in development studies, with a focus on processes and policies concerning poverty and socio-economic vulnerability, labour and work in unorganized/informal economies, rural development, rural industrialization and non-farm economies, migration, information technology, reform and transitions, and globalization processes and patterns. Regionally, his work focuses on Asia, especially on India and China. Dr Saith has served as a research analyst and policy advisor with several international development agencies, including ILO, FAO, IFAD and UNDP. He has been associated in an editorial capacity with several leading academic journals in the field of development, including Development and Change, Journal of Agrarian Change, Journal of Peasant Studies, Journal of Development Studies, Indian Journal of Labour Economics, and Labour and Development. He has published extensively in international journals, and also authored and edited several books. M. Vijayabaskar is Assistant Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai. He has previously been a Visiting Fellow in contemporary Indian studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and a Research Fellow at the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore. In his professional capacity, Dr Vijayabaskar has been Project Leader, Diffusion of Information and Communication Technologies in India: Labour Market Implications for Developing Countries., funded by the International Development Research Center, Canada and the Asia-Pacific Development Informatics Programme, Singapore; and has served as a consultant for the ILO on several projects. His research interests are primarily in the area of political and social economy of development, with a focus on new organizational forms like clusters, processes of governance and technological change, and restructuring of labour markets and processes. He has contributed articles to several edited volumes, and to journals like Economic and Political Weekly.

Reviews

The book brings together a set of papers on the relationship between new technologies and socio-economic divides, deployment of new technologies in governance and other public policy initiatives to overcome such divisions. It says that the services sector has arguably been the driver of India's growth process in recent years. The contribution of IT related services to this phenomenon is widely acknowledged and well documented.

-- Press Trust of India
This...book...put's together the optimistic voices of techno-idealists, critical social science perspectives on technology and a range of empirical material on the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTS) on the lives of the people. It traces these processes across urban and rural spaces of work, consumption, e-governance, and highlights the new kinds of social identities they are fostering in India and opens up an arena for dialogue between activists, technologists, policy makers, and academia on using ICTS for development. -- Free Press Journal

Of value to those who seek urgent changes!

-- Hindu Business Line

It's the first book of its kind that puts together the optimistic voices of techno-idealists and a range of empirical material on the impact of Information and Communication Technologies on the lives of people.

-- Mail Today

This collection of papers gives a useful overview of the contribution of information and communication technologies to India's economic development.... The editors point to the importance of understanding the trajectory of growth in other low-income economies and the role of public policies in this direction.

-- Development Policy Review

As a volume dealing with information and communication technologies, with a focus on economy, work an regulation, the contents of this volume are fairly predictable-the role of the state, infrastructure provisioning, global competitiveness, diffusion of technologies, and the impact on labour markets and labour processes....the volume is excellent reference material.

-- Journal of South Asian Development