Abstract
There are several reasons for social and economic exclusion of citizens, and digital divide is one of the most important one. Digital divide is a social issue which denotes the varying amount of information between those who have access to the Internet (especially broadband access) and those who do not have access. Broadly speaking, the difference is not necessarily determined by the access to the Internet, but by access to ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) and to Media that the different segments of society can use. It describes a gap in terms of access to and usage of ICT. It was traditionally considered to be a question of having or not having access, but with a global mobile phone penetration of over 95%, it is becoming a relative inequality between those who have more and less bandwidth and more or less skills. In this modern world marked by a growing need for ICT skills at all levels, there is an increased need to bridge the digital divide. ICT is so tightly woven into the fabric of society today that its deprivation can rightly be considered one of twentieth century social deprivations, such as low income, unemployment, poor education, ill health and social isolation. To consider ICT deprivation as somehow less important underestimates the pace, depth and scale of technological change, and overlooks the way that different disadvantages can combine to deepen exclusion. One of the most challenging tasks being faced by India is digital divide. This paper presents an approach which has been followed by district administration in the district of Alirajpur, Madhya Pradesh, India. The significance of Alirajpur district is that it is the least literate district in the whole country. Average literacy rate of Alirajpur in 2011 is 36% compared to 31% of 2001 [1, 2]. It can be safely inferred that if positive results can be obtained in Alirajpur district, then it is very likely that better results can be obtained in any other district of the country.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
http://www.census2011.co.in/census/district/332-alirajpur.html. Accessed 01 Sept 2016
Compaine, B.M.: The digital Divide: Facing a Crisis or Creating a Myth?. MIT Press, Cambridge (2001). http://www.indiamapia.com/Alirajpur.html. Accessed 01 Sept 2016
Norris, P.: Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information Poverty, and the Internet Worldwide. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2001)
Tsatsou, P.: Digital divides revisited: what is new about divides and their research? Med. Cult. Soc. 33(2), 317 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443710393865. http://mcs.sagepub.com/content/33/2/317. Accessed 18 Sept 2016
Wolf, L.: what is digital divide? p. 8, July–Sept 2002. (www.techknowlogia.org)
Fong, M.W.L.: Digital divide: the case of developing countries. Issues Inf. Sci. Inf. Technol. 6(2), 471–478 (2009)
Leye, V.: Information and communication technologies for development: a critical perspective. Glob. Govern. 15(1), 29–35 (2009)
Hewitt de Alcantara, C.: The Development Divide in a Digital Age. An Issues Paper. Technology, Business and Society Programme Paper Number 4. Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, August (2001). http://www.unrisd.org/UNRISD/website/document.nsf/ab82a6805797760f80256b4f005da1ab/19b0b342a4f1cf5. Accessed 30 May 2008
UNITED NATIONS E-GOVERNMENT SURVEY, pp. 124–140, 14 Sept 2016. https://publicadministration.un.org/egovkb/portals/egovkb/documents/un/2014-survey/chapter6.pdf. (2014)
Harris, R.: A Framework for Poverty Alleviation with ICTs (2002). http://www.communities.org.ru/ci-text/harris.doc. Accessed 14 Sept 2016
Mansell, R.: Information and communication technologies for development: assessing the potential and the risks. Telecommun. Policy 23(1), 35–50 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0308-5961(98)00074-3
Castells, M.: Information Technology, Globalization and Social Development (1999). http://goo.gl/PFdx3A. Accessed 20 Feb 2015
United Nations. Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 24 November 2015. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld
Mossberger, K., Mary, K.M.C.J.T., Tolbert, C.J., Stansbury, M.: Virtual Inequality: Beyond the Digital Divide. Georgetown University Press, Washington, D.C. (2003)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Babu, K.R., Sagar, A.B., Kothari, P. (2020). Social Inclusion and e-Governance: A Case Study in Alirajpur District. In: Rautaray, S., Eichler, G., Erfurth, C., Fahrnberger, G. (eds) Innovations for Community Services. I4CS 2020. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1139. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37484-6_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37484-6_16
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-37483-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-37484-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)