ICTs and Indian Economic Development: Economy, Work, Regulation

Citation

Huang, H. and Umapathy, K. (2007), "ICTs and Indian Economic Development: Economy, Work, Regulation", Information Technology & People, Vol. 20 No. 3, pp. 304-305. https://doi.org/10.1108/09593840710822895

Recently the impacts of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on economic development and social changes have increasingly gained attentions from scholars and policymakers worldwide. Developing a viable and sustainable knowledge‐based economy has become a primary goal of both developed and developing nations, in which the production, diffusion, and utilization of ICTs play an essential and strategic role in the economic development. On the one hand, the knowledge economy development of a given nation is not an isolated process but rather closely connected to the global market and environment. On the other hand, the developmental trajectories of different nations vary from one another because each nation has its own unique historical, political, economic, social, and cultural contexts. The rapidly developed Indian software industry and its dominance in the global information service export market is a well‐known story. Yet many questions remain with regards to: how various external and internal factors have come together to shape India's current ICT sectors[1]; whether or not Indian software industry has the strength and flexibility to maintain its current lead position in the future; what impacts are brought by the growth of ICT industries to other industrial sectors and the overall Indian economic development; and whether or not such growth is capable of pushing the momentum of economic and social transformations of India towards a sustainable knowledge‐based economy and how. The book of “ICTs and Indian Economic Development: Economy, Work, Regulation” is set to explore some of these questions.

This edited book is based on a selection of papers presented at the conference of ICTs and Indian Development held in Bangalore in 2002. It consists of 14 chapters. Chapter 1, “The diffusion of information technology and implications for development: a perspective based on the Indian experience” provides an overview of the growth of Indian ICT industry, including both the domestic and export ICT markets and their contributions to the GDP. Chapters 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 focus on examining the software industry development and its impact on India' labor market and economic development. Chapters 7, 8 and 9 shift the focus to the telecommunication industry and investigate the issues of telecommunication policies, standards and infrastructures development. Chapters 10, 11 and 12 explore how the diffusion and utilization of ICTs transform the secondary information sectors, particularly the financial sector (stock market), the entrepreneurship and the automobile industry. Chapters 13 and 14 compare the developmental trajectory of India with that of China with respect to policy formulations, software industry development and ICT diffusions.

This book has three unique features that make it worthy of reading. First, this book takes a reflective approach to investigate the relationships between ICTs and Indian economic development from multiple perspectives, such as the historical contexts and the local socio‐political conditions. Second, the overall tone of this book is critical rather than simply optimistic. It does not only acknowledge the positive effects of some contributing factors to the growth of Indian software industry and the potential economic development forces generated by such growth, but also articulate the unintended consequences of these factors, question the capacity of ICTs industries to enable the overall economic development, and examine the constraints and challenging issues of achieving a profound economic transformation. Third, this book also takes a proactive stand, positioning India in the competitive global environments and looking for long‐term developmental agendas.

It should be noted that the topics of production, diffusion and utilization of ICTs and economic development are very broad and controversy. Discussions and viewpoints presented in this book are by no means comprehensive or well‐balanced. There are two major limitations of this book. As C.P. Chandrasekhar, the author of Chapter 1 of this book points out, in order for ICTs to truly transform the economy and sustain such development, there are three key aspects: first, the growth and diversification of the ICT sectors; second, the adoption and utilization of ICTs into a wide variety of secondary information sectors; and third, the penetration of ICTs into non‐production related activities, diverse communities and individuals. This book focuses on the first aspect, briefly touches on the second aspect, and does not address the third aspect. In addition, while there are a number of factors that influence the growth and diversification of ICT sectors and those factors are interconnected, chapters in this book put more emphases on the policy perspective and overlook other influential factors such as education, intellectual capital, culture, and their interconnections.

India is a unique case of developing countries with a rapidly growing software industry. It is not only important for India to reflect on their experience and explore how to sustain the growth and expand its impact, but it is also important for other developing countries to draw on the experience of India and develop their own paths to a sustainable knowledge economy. Therefore, this book is a resourceful read for scholars, practitioners, policymakers and students in different domains (such as sociology, economic development, information policy and social informatics) worldwide.