[Imc-india] students 38% of Indian internet

[Boud Roukema]

Discussion threads at new-imc on india.indymedia in June:
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2001-June/000361.html
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2001-June/000382.html
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2001-June/000385.html
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2001-June/000407.html
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2001-June/000448.html

Two of the major questions discussed are:
1) an IMC should be bottom up with local, grassroots participation
2) India has a big population, but only a tiny fraction have e-access

Both relate to demographics.

I've contacted a few activist colleagues of mine (Indians in India), and
got back similar comments to those of the June discussion at new-imc, 
but they have also raised questions on:

3) personal risk (in particular via courts, e.g. the supreme court)

4) representation (fonts) and easy content creation (WYSIWIG editors) 
of non-ASCII scripts. This is a techie question - the fonts more or less
exist, but lots of help for the user and possibly software development 
is required.

5) A point I noticed myself is that a lot of on-line Indian newspapers
do occasionally publish alternative news articles, but these disappear very
quickly and can only be found on archives such as www.google.com.

Reposting of these on india.indymedia.org would provide a much more
accessible archive, and at the same time give credit to the original
newspaper alternative enough to provide this material.


I only comment here on 1) + 2), on the fact that Indian students in 
India are presently the main body of Indian internet users who 
could (stress *could*, not *would*) both learn a lot and participate
in India-indymedia.  

If students got excited, they would be able to support 4) the tech
question of spawning off kolkata.indymedia, pune.indymedia, dilli.indymedia,
 etc. - with appropriate font + content creation help - if that were
desired.


1) + 2) Demographics
--------------------
Here are some statistics (not professional at all, just grabbed off google!)

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:GgqXrqCf32k:cgi.apnic.net/mailing-lists/s-asia-it/0007/msg00049.html  [volatile link]

-> as of July 2000, in India:
 - 1 million subscriptions 
 - 3.7 million users 
 18-24 year age group at 49 per cent, 
 25-39 year age group  28 per cent
 
> with males hogging 77 per cent of total access
 
> capital cities (Delhi and state capitals) today accounted 
> for 77 per cent of net connectivity

OK, this misses out a lot of India's population. Agreed. It
misses out most of the very active, very politically aware, 
very disadvantaged, people. 

http://www.isp-planet.com/research/india_stats.html

> the student community which contributes accounts 
> for about 38% of Internet surfers. 

> Over half (59.2%) use the Internet as an information resource, 11.3%
> use it as an educational tool and just under 8.2% use it for
> entertainment.

It seems to me this is very important to keep in mind: about half
the e-accessible population in India consists of students.

Jay + Vidhi
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2001-June/000402.html
Vidhi's message:

> The need of the hour is to try to have a body which can help connect
> various units, create a broader forum for progressive, alternate
> media. This would lead to its own synergy. Also, this would be an
> important library resource for exchange of information between
> various media initiatives, information which can be
> used/disseminated by these initiatives at the local level.

Agreed - this should be the main goal.

> Peripherally, the internet would be an excellent and powerful medium
> of broadcast of alternate media (to a miniscule, but influential
> section of the population).  

Here is where the demographics count: college/university students are
an influential section of the population. 

They are extremely active at the moment concerning their own direct
interests
(e.g. http://india.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=179)

and if they could be connected with other struggles, then there could
be a mutual support which is historically important in any country:
students+workers or students+farmers etc. is a powerful (and
necessary) combination.

Some students are from disadvantaged groups and are involved in
activism, but many are from elites and/or lack the knowledge for
seeing the flaws and factual errors in mainstream news media and
"neoliberal economics".

India.indymedia.org and any more local sites which spin off would
seem to be ideal for getting them "plugged in" to constructively
helping the majority of Indian grass-roots activists.