India slips in Information & Communication Technology ranking, performs worst of all BRICS countries: UN report

Ranking No 131 of 167 countries in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Development Index or IDI, India has slipped by seven points from No 125 in 2010, says a just-released report, “Measuring the Information Society Report 2015”, prepared by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), part of the United Nations system, headquartered in Geneva.
Among the important categories analyzed in the report include fixed and mobile cellular telephone subscriptions, international internet bandwith per internet user, percentage of households with a computer, percentage of households with internet access, percentage of individuals using internet, fixed and mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, adult literacy rate, secondary gross enrolment ratio, and tertiary gross enrolment ratio.
The report comes in the backdrop of a report being propagated by circles close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that India is all set to “overcome” China this month, becoming the second-largest population of internet users after China by December. The claim has been made quoting the trade group Internet and Mobile Association of India.

The report states, the country with “the highest IDI ranking in 2015, as in 2010, is the Republic of Korea, with an overall IDI value of 8.93”, adding, “Eight of the top ten economies in the 2015 rankings are from Europe (Denmark, Iceland, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Norway).” These countries show a “high level of ICT development” with continued “high levels of investment in ICT infrastructure and innovation.”
While India’s IDI value has been indexed at 2.60 on a scale of 10, as against the world average of 5.53, among the comparable BRICS countries, India ranks the worst, with Brazil ranking No 61, Russia No 44, China No 82, and South Africa No 88. The neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh rank worse than India at No 143 and No 144, respectively, while Sri Lanka ranks better with a ranking of No 115.

A visual impression of ICT Development Index ranking across the world

The report notes, countries such as India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh “have experienced an average improvement of 0.72 in their IDI values over the period 2010-2015, less than the corresponding figure for the group of countries above them in the rankings, but starting from a lower base.”
It adds, “The sharpest rise in the rankings within this group of countries came from Bhutan (up nine places) and Myanmar (up eight places), while significant falls were recorded by Vietnam (down eight places), India (down six places) and Pakistan (down five places).”
Referring to the Americas, the report states, “the United States, Canada and Barbados lead the IDI rankings, with IDI values above 7.50, and global rankings in the top 30 economies. These three countries significantly outperform all other countries in the region, with IDI levels approaching one whole point above the next highest regional performer, Uruguay.”
As for the Arab states, it says, “The top five countries in terms of ICT development – Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait – are oil-rich high-income economies” with an “IDI value of over 6.50”, and are “among the top fifty countries in the global rankings.” It adds, Three of them (Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia) are among the ten countries which have seen the most dynamic improvements in IDI rankings.”
---
Click HERE to download the UN report

Comments

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Venkaiah Naidu. The most striking comment came from BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, who stated : "When a train derailed in the 1950s, Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned. On the same morality, I demand PM Modi, HM Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Naidu resign so that a free and fair inquiry can be held. All that Modi and his associates have been doing so far is gallivanting, which must stop." Amidst widespread mourning, some fringe elements sought to communalize the tragedy. One post ...

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

Search This Blog