Byte-sized pieces of diplomacy

NEW DELHI: India's success with IT brought the world to India. Now India is using IT to help bring other countries to the world.
As part of India's new diplomatic initiative, minister of state for IT Sachin Pilot is in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan this week to open new IT centres and IT parks. Uzbek president Islam Karimov had pressed for new IT centres in his country during his visit here in May.He wants Uzbeks to be more IT savvy, but this also provides Indian IT companies a readymade landing ground in these countries, because software development, especially in multi-lingual format will be a focus activity here. Setting up a Jawaharlal Nehru Uzbek-Indian Centre of Information Technology, India will be giving Uzbeks Rs 30 crore to get it going.
On October 17, Pilot will open another IT centre in Ashgabat to help Turkmenistan develop its own IT capabilities with Indian assistance. The centre has been set up by CDAC (India) and will address HRD development activities in the IT sector in Turkmenistan. India has already trained 10 master trainers from Turkmenistan and experts from CDAC will be placed there for six months.
Next month India will open yet another IT centre, this time in Armenia.
The phenomenal success of India's e-network covering 48 countries in Africa has enthused many other countries. The African project, conceived by former President APJ Abdul Kalam aims to develop Africa's information and communication technologies by eventually connecting all African countries to a satellite and fibre-optic network. For India, the over $1 billion investment has increased exports of telecom equipment to Africa including VSATs (very small aperture terminals), as well as IT services for telemedicine and other social applications.
While China is building the roads and highways, India is building the information connectivity. Ultimately, in Central Asia too, India could market its telemedicine network to help patients in these countries to access medical advice and prescription from Indian doctors.
The government is also in the process of giving a similar fibre-optic network to the 16 small island states in South Pacific. This is something India promised this group of critical votes in the UN General Assembly in the run-up to its election in the UN Security Council in 2010.