Re:Cultural ingnorance and Mobile phones (Score 1)

I entirely agree. I have never read such a collection of ignorant, obnoxious and completely arrogant comments in one place. Most of those who have posted messages on the Simputer question know zilch about India or any other Third World country, yet feel authorised to pontificate on why Simputer is or is not a good idea. India is not full of villages which are full of illiterate, shelterless poverty stricken peasants who have no idea how to grow crops or where to market them. True, many people are illiterate, and many are poor (of course, anyone is poor by current western shamelessly opulent standards of consumption, even in the so-called recession - but then people who worry about computer waste have no idea what it means NOT to be inunated with things and gadgets and to build their entire lives around them), but that doesn't make them ignorant. You would be amazed at how fast people can pick up on and make use of technology that serves a real need. Today I happened to see a Simputer, at Encore's office here in Bangalore, and although I was a earlier a sceptic, I was frankly bowled over. It is not a PDA or a Palm, it is much more than that -- it can be loaded with nine Indian languages, it can talk, it can sing, it can do practically everything a computer can do. Beyond the question of internet access, which I agree may not be the most crucial thing, it can be used for purposes like cooperative banks and credit societies -- the bank need have only one Simputer, and its member have smart cards that store their financial data. The bank comes to them, at a convenient time, rather than them running to the bank. And believe it or not, banking is important even for ignorant illiterate Indian villagers. I can imagine its uses in primary health care centers, where keeping patient records is a major problem, or in dairy cooperatives, where hundreds of women sell milk every day and get paid later. The point is not the price -- Rs 20,000 is not a huge amount for one village bank or panchayat to spend, it's not intended to be a PERSONAL computer. Although that may be difficult for egotistical Americans to fathom. For the record, I am American so think I have some right to protest, and I live here in india, where I think I have gained some amount of knowledge of what's happening around me over the years. I am not one of those who thinks that computers will solve everything, and I certainly agree that literacy should take precendence over computer literacy -- but does India have to wait for that to happen to make use of whatever technologies serve their purposes? On top of that is the totally laudable idea of open source for hardware -- the idea is to let as many people as need them have computers, without further padding the pockets of the Dells and the Microsofts of the world. Any objections to that? And a final note, please check out the debates about Bill Gates' recent visit here -- you'll get an idea of what American 'charity' look like from this end. The homegrown variety, while it might be 'misguided', is certainly preferable.