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India announces plan to connect 600k villages with optical fiber in 1000 days

indianexpress.com

31–40 of 124 posts

Re: India announces plan to connect 600k villages with optical fiber in 1000 days

#31

As an Indian, I've heard countless plans like these every few years. I'll get excited when it actually happens.

> As an Indian, I've heard countless plans like these every few years

I agree the previous Governments never did act on their plans. I find a lot of difference between them and the current Government when it comes to desire, commitment and execution. Take Highways for instance. Rapid construction across the country. In 2014, when Modi came to power, it was 4260 km per year. In 2018, 10800 kms of highways were built. Almost 2.5x. In 2020 the Government has set a target of 60 km per day which is 21900 km which it is already on the path of achieving. One thing cannot be denied is that this Government is pushing all boundaries possible to get India on track. Yes it fails in some (demonetization) and wins in most but at least there is no policy paralysis like in the UPA era.

Re: India announces plan to connect 600k villages with optical fiber in 1000 days

#32

Ok, but wouldn’t just providing clean drinking water for example be more critical for most of those families?

clean drinking water is a much more challenging problem. This is not merely the Govts. fault. People do not want to share existing water with other people and as economy is highly dependent on agriculture groundwater depletion is a serious issue. Most water in India (except Northern part) comes during the 4 months of monsoon. Large scale irrigation projects have a lot of environmental hurdles to overcome here unlike…

> Large scale irrigation projects have a lot of environmental hurdles to overcome here unlike China

Which is a good thing in my opinion. These projects have to be scrutinized thread bare to ensure that they don't degrade the environment. Just look at what is happening in China with the Three Gorges Dam and the flooding of the Yangtze river. People who had land, houses on either side of the river are seeing lands washed away by these floods. Millions were evacuated. Such projects, though provide short term economic benefit, might end up harming the entire ecosystem around it.

I am not saying that you shouldn't do anything about it. Just that it should be done after careful scrutiny. We are not a dictatorship. That is both a boon and a curse. A curse because we can't be as fast as China is in taking decisions. But a boon because we do whatever we do with as much consensus as possible. By not negating stakeholders and by trying to bring as many of them as possible to the table.

Re: India announces plan to connect 600k villages with optical fiber in 1000 days

#33

Ok, but wouldn’t just providing clean drinking water for example be more critical for most of those families?

https://jaljeevanmission.gov.in/content/about-jjm is targeted by 2024.

dashboard: https://ejalshakti.gov.in/WaterDashboard/HouseHoldConnection...

Re: India announces plan to connect 600k villages with optical fiber in 1000 days

#35

As an Indian, I've heard countless plans like these every few years. I'll get excited when it actually happens.

> As an Indian, I've heard countless plans like these every few years I agree the previous Governments never did act on their plans. I find a lot of difference between them and the current Government when it comes to desire, commitment and execution. Take Highways for instance. Rapid construction across the country. In 2014, when Modi came to power, it was 4260 km per year. In 2018, 10800 kms of highways were built.…

> Yes it fails in some (demonetization) and wins in most but at least there is no policy paralysis like in the UPA era.

This is OP's personal perception and opinion of the current and the former government.

Re: India announces plan to connect 600k villages with optical fiber in 1000 days

#36
It should have been done a long ago. Wasn't the first five years enough for the Modi govt. Undoubtedly, Modi has done a numerous good things, he failed to ensure a better internet connectivity. Had it not been Jio we would have been in a big trouble.

Re: India announces plan to connect 600k villages with optical fiber in 1000 days

#37

As an Indian, I've heard countless plans like these every few years. I'll get excited when it actually happens.

> As an Indian, I've heard countless plans like these every few years I agree the previous Governments never did act on their plans. I find a lot of difference between them and the current Government when it comes to desire, commitment and execution. Take Highways for instance. Rapid construction across the country. In 2014, when Modi came to power, it was 4260 km per year. In 2018, 10800 kms of highways were built.…

I have backpacked through one of the regions where some of the construction you are talking about is going on. In one of the Himalayan states, one of their ambitious highway projects has caused destruction with little benefit to the local populace and far negative consequences to the terrain and environment. Pursuing development is good but it shouldn't come at the cost of destroying your ecology and environment, specially the fragile ones.

So I would hold my judgement on the effectiveness and vision of the current establishment.

I tried searching for the issues once I came back but I was surprised how less effort was given in the country's English media to cover this. With the amount of publications that seemingly are there, I would have assumed this to be covered extensively and researched.

I would add that I am not against the improvement in connectivity, the Himalayas are beautiful. There are far better ways to improve connectivity which keeps the beauty of the areas preserved. It would have taken more time and money but the dividends would have been more.

I will leave some blog posts I found on the issue for reference; hopefully someone acts on this horrific "development" going on.

[1] https://indiaclimatedialogue.net/2018/09/24/highway-project-... [2]https://sandrp.in/2020/02/24/uttarakhand-road-widening-work-... [3] https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/sc...

Re: India announces plan to connect 600k villages with optical fiber in 1000 days

#38
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was going to say something along this line. Is disheartening to live in a first world country (center of Berlin) that happens to have the strongest economy in the Euro zone, and have such a slow internet that I can't even watch Netflix after 8 Pm (and having to pay 50 euro/month)

laughs in gigabit fiber for 10 euro/month in Eastern Europe The reason why you're in this situation is that under Helmut Kohl, despite advice from experts to use fiber, the German government wired the whole country with copper instead because the ministry of infrastructure at the time had stocks in the copper business.[1] And also, in present times, German politicians still don't see the value the internet brings to…

> ..under Helmut Kohl, despite advice from experts to use fiber, the German government wired the whole country with copper instead because the ministry of infrastructure at the time had stocks in the copper business.

Such abuse of public position ought to be a criminal offence - they profited at the cost of setting the country back a decade (or more!) in terms of modern infrastructure.

Ubiquitous, fast, and maybe even free Internet - it seems logical and obvious that this is the ideal we should be moving towards, to benefit the whole country/world and future generations.

Re: India announces plan to connect 600k villages with optical fiber in 1000 days

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer : I live in a village in Rajasthan. People will still the WiFi device and sell it for pennies. They don't spare road light in many parts of cities.

I'm from a former soviet republic, so I know what leads to this kind of thing, but it's still horrifying to have stated so matter-of-factly.

Detroit had the same problem with copper wiring in street lights until a few years ago, when they went LED and were able to reduce the size of the conductors and switch to aluminum, reducing the value of stripping them for scrap.

Re: India announces plan to connect 600k villages with optical fiber in 1000 days

#40
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was going to say something along this line. Is disheartening to live in a first world country (center of Berlin) that happens to have the strongest economy in the Euro zone, and have such a slow internet that I can't even watch Netflix after 8 Pm (and having to pay 50 euro/month)

laughs in gigabit fiber for 10 euro/month in Eastern Europe The reason why you're in this situation is that under Helmut Kohl, despite advice from experts to use fiber, the German government wired the whole country with copper instead because the ministry of infrastructure at the time had stocks in the copper business.[1] And also, in present times, German politicians still don't see the value the internet brings to…

what's wrong with N26? It seemed to be doing fine last time I checked.
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