Lies that Kill
Content from the Brookings Institution India Center is now archived. After seven years of an impactful partnership, as of September 11, 2020, Brookings India is now the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, an independent public policy institution based in India.
Brookings India hosted a panel to discuss the improvement of internet access for growth and development in India.
Key Issues
- India lacks the proper infrastructure to deliver high quality internet access to majority of the population. Poor infrastructure acts as an impediment to knowledge transfer.
- Prohibitive taxation regimes, censorship, lack of local digital content, and flawed regulations resulting in no ease of doing business all act as barriers to access.
- Skills-biased technological change can be a barrier to development. Introducing new technologies without enabling people to use them can result in a digital divide.
- There is a need to operationalise the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) in order to achieve higher speeds in both urban and rural areas.
- There is a need to create policies which ensure that workers are equipped with the right skills to meet the demand of the tech-oriented labour market. Technology can also be used for labour market matching.
