Internetting a winner

By introducing an e-culture, the government intends to facilitate those few who are educated enough to adapt to the new digital environment. For these people, the natural link will be through the Internet. But while Mahajan wants to divert traffic from Indian roads to electronic arteries, he doesn8217;t seem to realise that the Indian information highways are equally clogged and polluted, with limited bandwidth. While the Internet connectivity mostly remains in a coma, the plethora of Internet Service Providers ISPs have, in fact, become Internet Suffering Providers!

Though it8217;s hoped that because of their faster data transmission speeds, the impending digital and wireless Internet technologies may bring some relief to the users, the usage costs may be prohibitive. While a few may be able to interact with the outside world from the comfort of their homes or offices, most others will still be deprived of such a facility particularly in the absence of a community Internet service. To overcome this, the government could consider upgrading the existing 400,000 public call offices PCOs into public Internet centers, from where general public could access the Internet at cheaper rates for utilising the benefits of e-governance and e-commerce.

Information security, however, is an issue that needs to be addressed. The information travelling through the digital media, including telephone lines, is more prone to hacking as compared to physical transactions. The documents sent through e-mail, for example, will have to be routed through a third-party computer server, which will have full access to such documents before they reach their destination, say, a government department. Banks also need to devise fresh norms while dealing electronically with the remote customer and while handling online payments for e-commerce.

In order to enforce the Act, the government has appointed a national IT controller and is, besides, considering a proposal to set up Cyber Regulations Appellate Tribunal with the powers of a civil court. However, implementation will require a thorough IT orientation for the law enforcement agencies, which may not be an easy task. Take, for example, the software industry. Despite the government8217;s will to safeguard intellectual property rights, software piracy is rampant in the country, with six out of every 10 software products in use being pirated.

Language will prove to be another irritant. While almost all the official information, particularly in the electronic form, will be in English, people without a knowledge of English may not be able to able to participate fully in the e-revolution that the government wants to introduce. A tacit resistance from bureaucrats, who generally thrive on secrecy, is also expected, because with e-governance they will be virtually out of the loop.

Finally, India still does not have a distinct cyber culture. Getting one will certainly prove to be toughest part of all!