Information and knowledge in the age of electronic communication: a developing country perspective

The current digital revolution, the fourth information revolution in histor y after the invention of writing, the book and printing, has serious potent ial to exacerbate the gulf between the North and the South. As has been obs erved in the USA, even within an affluent country, with inadequate policy i nterventions, information technology not only widens the digital divide but also deepens the racial ravine. The implications of the new information an d communication technologies (ICTs) for science and scholarship and for dev elopment are examined. The maldistribution of access to ICTs - telephones, computers, networks, Internet, bandwidth and electronic journals - is bound to make it even more difficult for the developing countries to contribute to, and take advantage of, knowledge in the sciences. These countries will get further marginalised, As suggested by Brace Alberts, President of the N ational Academy of Sciences, USA, knowledge dissemination structures need t o be put in place which are not entirely based on commerce. Innovative mode ls, such as the community access model of the M.S. Swaminathan Research Fou ndation, which attempts to transform the otherwise divisive information tec hnologies into allies in the equity movement, can make a difference to the life of the rural poor. The Swaminathan model emphasises delivering locale- specific knowledge that the people actually need and can use to improve the ir lot. The model follows a bottom-up approach, involving the user communit y as partners right from the beginning, emphasises knowledge delivery and u ses technology - a hybrid wired and wireless network - only when it is nece ssary to achieve its major goal of knowledge delivery.