Progress and Priorities
What a wondrous change in the world Satellite technology has wrought, helpfully altering peoples' lives, permitting them to be empowered, giving them control over their lives through the wonders of instant communication. That's high tech for you. Technology that has been around for far longer, however, with far more immediately practical uses, say for elementary sanitation, not quite as glamorous, and playing second fiddle.The economy of India, the world's second-largest population-base, has begun its upward swing, lifting with that rising pendulum of wealth, untold numbers of Indians out of poverty and into the status of the zone of comfort. There is greater access to electricity, and television now dominates in its aggregate presence, over mere radio transmissions. More young Indians are setting out on their own as nuclear families, leaving the traditional multi-family nest.
Unfortunately, there is yet a long, long way to go despite entering an era of rapid economic growth and general raising of the standard of living. In fact, one-fifth of the country's 1.2-billion people have seen no rise in their standard of living. And among them there are those whose access to potable drinking water is limited to a third of homes, while 17% continue to fetch water from a half-kilometre distance daily.
Two-third of Indian homes use firewood, cow dung, crop waste or coal to cook. The impact on their general state of health is attributable to that little fact, along with enrivonmental problems that result. Yet there has been a runaway increase in mobile phone ownership. While ten years earlier fewer than 4% of rural homes had a telephone, today that figure is 54%.
On the other hand, a mere 10% more people in India over that same decade now have access to their very own private toilet. Defecating and urinating in public areas remains a fact of daily life. The persistence in the country of a poor and dangerous level of sanitation is inexplicable, as though local authorities cannot visualize a more healthy situation and simply accept the status quo instead of planning suitable infrastructure.
This is partly due to lack of education about the connection between abysmal sanitation and poor health related to circulating bacteria, viruses and disease in general. What else can it represent other than truly disturbingly skewed priorities when more homes have a telephone than a toilet? India's census chief, C. Chandramouli, lays the blame on "cultural and traditional reasons and lack of education".
Yet among Indians living an urban lifestyle, access to higher education and alternate lifestyles is common enough, and there has always been an academic elite whose rational and scientific prowess has been recognized world-wide. Young Indians' proficiency in the use of computers and the Internet is such that the country has become an international hub for sourcing-out call centres.
Still, it is a long, long and painful haul from extreme endemic poverty into the heights of the modest privileged. Most Indians rely on bicycles; a mere 2.3% of Indian households have a car at their disposal. In such a massively populated country with the population ever growing and shifting, satellite technology using imagery from space is the only practical way government can track the populations of its city slums.
As a result of the rapid pace of expansion, it is futile to issue printed maps, since they become outdated the moment they appear.
Labels: India, Technology, That's Life, Traditions
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, March 15, 2012
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