Substack

Monday, November 21, 2011

Internet penetration graph for the day

India may be the leader in the software industry among emerging economies. However, in the use of the platform that delivers this software, internet, it lags badly behind as this graphic illustrates.



And, as FT writes, despite the low base, it is the slowest growing market among the BRICS,

India, however, may have a decent number of people online (around 100m) but that’s only 8 per cent of the population. India’s online users growth rate is 13 per cent, which sounds fast until compared to the other three – China and Brazil are at 18 per cent and Russia is 14 per cent.

1 comment:

KP said...

Dear Gulzar,

The FT graph again reinforces a certain vacuousness when our elite debate solutions.

With the 3rd largest number of think tanks in the world (source wikipedia)- and mostly aligned to the government / by composition very non-representative of the country at large (elitist). It is no surprise that there are too many think - tanks and very little thought other than conformance.

Accentuating the trend - the newer high profile quasi think -tank / NGO's owe their origins to industry professionals - mostly Technology and generally represent the cream.

The fundamental allocational thrust between welfare subsidies / market subsidies (I prefer this word to incentives) - seems beyond debate for this very reason.

While the mecca of capitalism is debating the balance between liberalism and libertarianism. Over here the only voices that seem to get media attention are singularly to the right. The self referential and mutuallly reinforcing strategies are evident in the discourse.

No wonder then, the answer is always markets ( and technology ) -what was the question?????

[The graph raises interesting questions on whom the subsidy for the tablet is directed - directed at the urban poor / rural poor ?? -the rural poor appear out of the loop - and what about electricity etc., - the required growth is a huge climb and worth unleashing and subssidizing competitive private market forces.]

regards,KP.