Asia | Digital dead zones

India’s rocketing internet-user growth has stalled

That is a major worry for a country pushing digitisation

Labourers speak on wireless phones in an alley outside a local telephone booth in Kolkata, India, May 10, 2016. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri     TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY      - S1BETDEVYMAA
Image: Reuters
|MUMBAI

When india implemented its first lockdown in 2020 and its schools moved over to online learning, Sharmila found herself in a quandary. She is a maid in the posh western suburbs of Mumbai; she had enrolled her son and daughter in a fee-paying school. But her family possessed a single smartphone. So her children would either both have to skip some online classes or one would have to miss them all. Happily, her employers gave her a second smartphone, at a cost of 10,000 rupees ($122). That is more than Sharmila’s monthly wage.

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Digital dead zones”

From the January 14th 2023 edition

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