Information Society Watch

Abdul Jaleel Tharayil & Rajeev K R

In a developing country like India, advances in ICTs have brought a lot of opportunities and perhaps a whole lot of challenges as well. One of the main challenges is the frightening gap between the information have-s and information have-nots -what is known as the digital divide. The paper highlights the concept of digital divide in general and the Indian scenario in particular and suggests measures to reduce this divide especially the role that can be played by rural libraries towards this end. Major challenges in the path towards digital opportunity such as poverty, illiteracy, political instability, and poor ICT infrastructure are highlighted. The paper gives the specific instance of a project in India where collaboration between the IT department and the library council helped address the issue of digital divide (Adapted from authors).

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