'Government should make Internet free'

Dr Raj Reddy, Herbert A Simon University professor of computer science and robotics at the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), feels the Indian Government could easily create an Internet network for one-tenth the cost of Rs 60,000 crore required for the road infrastructure in India.

Entertainment, e-learning and communication are the three killer applications
that can make PC as desirable as a television set in India. And while
development of compelling content to proliferate the use of these applications
should be the prime objective of Indian IT players, the government should take
the responsibility of providing broadband infrastructure in the country. Calling
upon the government to free Internet connectivity across India, Dr Raj Reddy,
Herbert A Simon University professor of computer science and robotics at the
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), also says that government could easily create
this network for one-tenth the cost of Rs 60,000 crore required for the road
infrastructure in India.

Talking to the Cyber News Service after addressing the annual day of the
Chennai-based SSN School of Advanced Software Engineering (SSNSASE), Dr Reddy
said that information and communication technology could be a powerful tool to
facilitate social and economic development. However, to make technology
sustainable the country needs affordable accessibility. "Not

everybody needs to own an access device. The accessibility of an access device
should not revolve around ownership, rather it should be made accessible at a
walking distance on a shareable basis, say in a PCO," he says, adding that
this, however, would require meaningful content and a new device - TV-PCR - that
could deliver these content.

According to Dr Reddy, the Indian IT industry and institutions like the
SSNSASE and CMU have a major role to play in increasing the relevance of IT for
the masses in India. Stressing on the fact that the need of the hour is to
create a knowledge bank, he also informed that besides tying up with SSNSASE to
offer masters degree in software engineering, CMU has already initiated a $30
million 'digital library project' in India. Funded by the National Science
Foundation of the US, currently the project is being run in India, USA and
China.

According to Dr Reddy, the project involving digitizing of over a million
books by 2006 is being implemented in association with Tamil Nadu, Andhra
Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra governments and a large number of authors
have also agreed to host their works on the Internet. Also, while 40 centers in
these four states were already engaged in scanning 10,000 pages a day, the
project aims at increasing the number of centers to 100.

CYBER NEWS SERVICE

CHENNAI