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Rural India in the Digital Age
The rapid spread of information and communications technologies (ICT) is changing the way economic and social development occurs in most countries. New ICT-related tools are making institutions and markets more productive; enhance skills and learning; improve governance at all levels and make these easier for the poor to access services and make their voices heard. Since Independence, the government in India has implemented several rural development programmes. But they have not made any remarkable improvement in the living conditions of people. It can be mainly because the impact of ICT in rural areas is very limited, despite its penetration into every corner of modern life. ICT infrastructure is more profitable and therefore easier to develop in urban areas, thus, further broadening the gap between the urban and the rural access to ICT. India is a country of multiple divides as social and economic divides already exists in the country and now with the emergence of new ICTs new divisions are shaped on the basis of many factors involved in its use and access.
This paper discuss about the ways of use of different ICTs by the rural people. Also it presents their preference to the ICTs on the basis of their use and user friendly nature of ICT. The question is attempted in a comparative perspective with reference to two villages of different social and demographic composition, located at equal distance from the district headquarters at the Gurgaon city of Gurgaon Development Block in Gurgaon district of the State of Haryana in India.