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Also, it is no coincidence that two of the
most affected regions, Nicobar and Acheh province in
Indonesia, are among the most isolated and incommunicable.
Even Indians need permission to go to Nicobar. Not
surprisingly, this isolation actually made those people even
more vulnerable.
In India, the flow of information has been
in the stranglehold of various information and
communications policies. Centralising information flow, as
most governments in India have tended to do, more often than
not defeats the very purpose of that information. In fact,
at the end it leaves even the government in a blind. It is
no coincidence that even after 48 hours after the sea
surges, no information was available from many parts of the
affected areas, and consequently, speedy relief did not
reach these areas.
In fifty years, we have barely been able
to make basic telephone needs available to 5% of the
population. With the recent and hesitant reforms in the last
ten years, we enhanced telephone density to 10% by opening
up mobile telephony. Internet access in India is among the
lowest for a country that aspires to be a potential
powerhouse in the information technology sector. We have
done everything possible to retard the expansion of
information, broadcasting and communication channels. We
have spent years debating new opportunities opened up by
rapid technological changes in areas like DTH, broadband,
convergence, satellite access, but have actually done
nothing that would enable us to seize these new
opportunities.
In the aftermath of the tidal wave, the
government announced its decision to set up a tsunami
warning system. Point is why is it that in spite of days of
prior warning, cyclones and floods continues to kill
thousands of people each year? Would a new tsunami warning
system really help?
Three days after the tsunami, even as
reports of dire needs are pouring in from many corners, as
shortage of potable water and food and threats of epidemic
outbreaks are becoming a possibility, we think our national
pride will be hurt if we accept help from abroad. Just as we
let our people down by failing to raise an alarm in time, we
now exhibit our resoluteness in sacrificing our own people
rather than allow others to step in with facilities for
clean water and medicine.
Information is power. Free flow of
information using the whole range of communication
technologies is the best way to empower the people. For a
country that proposed Satya Meva Jayate, rather than be
shaken by the tsunami, we should use this crisis to shake
off the shackles on information. Let the truth prevail.
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