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by Ravinatha Aryasinha

In this context, it is not ownership but an increase in public access to the internet, possibly through the development of a network of Community Access Centres where direct access facilities and related services are provided at an affordable rate, that can make the Internet a meaningful tool for empowerment.

The UNESCO is helping in the development of Multipurpose Telecommunity Centres in the South Asian countries. Some useful starts have already been made in Rajkot District in Rajasthan, India and in Kahawatte in Sri Lanka.

It is incumbent on the part of the state to ensure that such centres benefit from subsidised telecom and high speed Internet connections so that the community can be provided with the service at affordable prices.

Given that a considerable number of families in many South Asian countries have relatives living abroad, the liberalisation of telephone services would further encourage this process. While the state should be the catalyst in starting up such projects and in subsidising connections, it is imperative that such centres be made self-sustaining through the income they generate rather than having them dependent on the state or international donors.

e. Information dissemination/public awareness

Given the continued affront faced by the media in most South Asian states, it would seem prudent that newspapers/broadcasters should seek to strengthen their presence on the web in order to circumvent censorship situations.

However, South Asian newspapers, journals and broadcasters have up to now not paid sufficient attention to promoting themselves on-line. This is partly due to their awareness of the limited access to the Internet within these countries. In fact, most of those that are web-based largely target the South Asian diaspora to the West, primarily as channels for entertainment. However, Nalaka Gunawardene opines that in Sri Lanka, journalists are "fearful" of the Internet, which, if true across the region, would be a serious impediment to the optimisation of its potential.

The improvement of the Internet's content, its relevance and objectivity in the South Asian context, will also significantly affect the impact that the medium will have in developing public opinion.

Removing the language bias by developing local language software and content will constitute an important aspect in this regard. There is also a need to develop local language processors, translator/character recognition software and local language marketing opportunities.

These can perk up the market economies in these countries with considerable revenue earning potential. The development of an entrepreneurial culture can make Internet use even more relevant.

Given the fractured nature of South Asian polity, ensuring a high degree of objectivity on any given site although desirable, is quite difficult. Conceptually, while the development of 'web portals' where different points of view are presented has been seen as a possible way out, there are very few examples of such with respect to the respective South Asian states or the region as a whole.

f. Effects on diaspora groups

The ability to stay "connected" through the Internet has also enabled South Asian diaspora groups to maintain their interest level in the affairs of the 'home' country. For first generation immigrants, this would largely relate to political issues. For the second and third generations, it is more likely to be through economic motivation and patterns of cultural consumption.

A recent study by the RAND Corporation noted that "some of the most significant diasporas of today, like the Indians and Sri Lankan Tamils, have begun to exercise unprecedented clout in the affairs of their home countries, akin to the Jewish diaspora in the US" and that "the more activist elements among these larger immigrant communities ... have more rapid and visible means of calling attention to issues of interest in their home countries than ever before, thanks to the communication and information technology revolution."

The increasing dominance of South Asian disaporas (mainly Indian) on the IT sector is of particular strategic significance. Viewed in the broader context of globalisation, developing countries such as those in South Asia will increasingly find that decisions at home are influenced, if not conditioned, by forces outside the respective states.

Diaspora communities, largely using the Internet as its source, will play a critical role in shaping these events. This may take many forms; as significant vote banks in the host state that could shape/destroy the image of their home countries within their host communities, impacting relations between the host and home states, enabling/withholding economic support and in helping further/curb subversive activities through acts ranging from funding illegal movements to engaging in cyber terror.

With moves afoot in most countries in the region to extend the franchise to its expatriate nationals, an additional political dimension with a more direct bearing will also open up, enhancing the pre-eminence of diaspora as a political factor back home. The Internet and ICTs will necessarily be the catalyst through which these processes are likely to manifest themselves.

Pradeep Jeganathan, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago who analyses the impact of the Internet with respect to the Sri Lanka Tamil diaspora and pro-Eelam websites observes that these sites "preserve the form of the nation as territory for the LTTE and those who want to believe in its mission" and that "this works for all those nationals of Tamileelam who click onto eelam.com from New York, Oslo, Sydney or Amsterdam, who have no wish to return to Eelam, no wish to live there, but who must believe in it if they are to keep living where they are". He adds that "for them, Eelam is real, it is lived - not as a place but as an image.

And for them, eelam.com exists at the intersection of cyberspace and Eelam, at the intersection of an extraordinary technology or representation and the imagination".

The net result of this plethora of sources of information, as articulated by one Tamil activist, is that "Tamils are no longer dependent on any established mass media telling us what is going on in the world about ourselves".

The effect of that power of communication and the relevance of the Internet on the Tamil diaspora spread far beyond the mere one million of the 2.4 million Sri Lankan Tamils who live abroad. Globally, there are over 70 million Tamils, some 50 million of them in the state of Tamil Nadu in India alone, making it a sizeable community. As the differentiation between 'imagined' and 'real' narrows down on the net, this group no doubt will become a force to reckon with.

g. Catalyst in regional cooperation

It is debatable whether the Internet helps ease or aggravates interstate tensions. However, notwithstanding the prevailing political tensions, given the similarity of the stages of development of countries in the region, rather than re-inventing the wheel individually, there remains considerable scope for sharing software products and policy guidelines already developed as well as replicating success stories in other countries within the region.

If this could initially be pursued bilaterally at the non-political/functional/technical levels, it would no doubt serve as a significant confidence-building measure between countries.

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) which already has a technical committee working on the IT sector could play a catalytic role in this process, drawing on the experience of other regional bodies. It should view the Internet as it does tourism, telecommunications, transport, etc, as a vehicle to enhance people-to-people contacts within the region and the nurturing of a 'South Asian Community'.

The expectation is that this could result in rich dividends, particularly in the economic and social spheres. A decade ago, the Indian and Pakistani views of 'the other' was conditioned by the media houses in their own countries. Over the last few years, due to satellite TV and more recently due to the Internet, people of each country can now learn not only what the other country is saying but also what independent observers are saying on any given situation.

If promoted, this could lead to an attitudinal change among the public which would no doubt bring pressure on the respective governments to alter their own approaches. There is also the prospect that the impact of the Internet as an economic tool can in fact help circumvent many of the political obstacles that exist between the business communities of not only India and Pakistan, but also between India and her other neighbours.

Such development of people to people contacts and converging business interests could bring additional pressure towards removing irritants that bedevil relations between these countries. It is also bound to have ramifications on government-to-government relations among countries in the region.

Challenges

a. Digital divide

South Asia has all the characteristics of a region that is clearly heading in the direction of a serious 'digital divide', deepening the chasms that prevail with respect to education, income, gender and between the urban-rural sectors within and between the South Asian states.

Many Indian policy-makers and academics, in particular, fear it could lead to a clear differentiation between the Southern States of India.

Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh along with Western Maharastra which has always been India's business hub and those states in the North Like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, where traditionally much of the political power is centred but where literacy and IT spread is very low. This concern is empirically verifiable. Among India's 1.4 million Internet connections, it is noteworthy that more than 1.3 million are in the states of Delhi, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

Bridging these gaps should not be seen as an act of generosity on the part of the 'Internet enabled' class but rather on the basis of enlightened self-interest. Such a divide in a region as politically volatile as South Asia may well have serious socio-political ramifications with the possibility of a backlash being very high. For the smaller countries in the region - given their lower levels of Internet capacity - it is merely a fear of widening social disparities.

For India, it is feared that the ramifications that are bound to arise from technological disparity between North and South in the long-term, could be detrimental to the unity and territorial integrity of the Indian Union as a whole.

b. Cultural invasion

There is considerable concern in all South Asian countries that the Internet poses a serious threat to accepted religious, cultural and ethical norms and that there are limits to cultural absorption capacity. They fear that the Internet is subverting ethical values in the sub-region and contributing to social instability and decadence.

While in all countries there is continuing concern regarding pornography and violence on the Internet, in Pakistan and Bangladesh, there is a belief that there was an anti-Islamic lobby that was flooding the Internet with blasphemous material, aimed to corrupt and confuse the younger generation. Some parents claimed that their children were even beginning to doubt their traditional religion and were raising embarrassing questions that parents found hard to answer.

While these concerns may no doubt be real and these societies, in particular, need to improvise ways and means to address them, one however finds the intensity attached to the issues somewhat exaggerated. Empirical evidence available from studies on the impact of the Internet in other developing countries and of other modern communication media in South Asia clearly does not show cause for alarm.

Hamada who has tested the perception of possible 'Internet imperialism" in relations to Malaysia finds "no significant support for the hypothesis that the Internet expands Western culture at the expense of Islamic culture." More recent studies done on the impact of nearly ten years of satellite television in South Asia, the introduction of which was also met with similar concerns, strongly refutes the suggestion that it has destroyed national identity and eroded ethical and cultural values in the region.

Page and Crawley observe that although at the beginning of the 1990s Satellite TV in South Asia included mostly English language programming originating from Western channels, at the end of the decade this changed completely, with even the international channels which are being beamed to the region via satellite vastly increasing their local language content to attract the region's hundreds of millions of viewers.

French and Richards argue that in fact "television is an important factor in national development in Asia and it will play a significant role in conserving national identity and natational culture."

In dealing with this issue, which is no doubt a genuine concern, the need for an attitudinal change seems imperative. Instead of the present approach which views the new technologies with suspicion, the South Asian attitude ought to be that, while being conscious of the dangers that are possible and pre-emptying and mitigating these, we should be appreciative of the potential of the ICTs and arrive at imaginative means of 'cautious engagement' through it.

In this context, recalling the advice of noted futurist Sir Arthur C. Clarke seems pertinent. Writing in 1999 Clarke observed, "while I share the genuine concerns of those who are anxious to preserve individual cultural heritage, Lose patience with some of the complaints levelled by the patronising "worthies" at the effects of such media. Because some of us suffer from the scourage of information pollution, we find it difficult to imagine its even deadlier opposite, infirmations tarvation."

c. Cyber terrorism

In all South Asian capitals, it is believed that while the state sector is slow in responding to the opportunities offered by the Internet, the state has become increasingly vulnerable to political manipulation and abuse of this medium by numerous groups that spread disinformation, engage in new forms of deceit, glorify the cult of violence and in some cases even resort to acts of cyber terrorism.

In some quarters, this is even equated with the easy access to today's rebel movements have sophisticated military equipment that can match, if not surpass, the military might of the state authority. It is feared that the same technological inovativeness seen within South Asia can easily covert its capability to helping the many subversive and terrorist groups in the region and beyond.

Reminiscent of the social action through hacking perpetrated by "Hacktivists" on the World Trade Organisation (WTO) web during the Seattle conference in 1999, in March 2000 a group of self-styled Pakistani hackers who called themselves the 'Muslim On line Syndicate' (MOS) used the Kashmir conflict as a reason to deface almost 600 web sites in India, including several Government web sites such as that of the Army and the Barbar Atomic Energy Institution. The intentions of the nine-member hacker group was "to bring the Kashmir conflict to the world's attention".

A former member of India's Prasar Bharati Board, B.G. Verghese, observe that in no instance had media jingoism been at its height in the sub-continent as it was during the period of the Kargil War between India and Pakistan in mid-1999.

In the face of continued cyber attacks and hacking from pro-Pakistan activists, the Indian State-controlled Internet Service Provider Videsh Sanchur Nigam Limited (VSNL) took the unprecedented step of blocking access to the site of the DAWN newspaper of Pakistan. As for Sri Lanka, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has long been known to not only maintain an effective propaganda presence on the web but has also engaged in acts of cyber terrorism.

The US State Department has identified it as being the first known terrorist organisation to have engaged in Information Infrastructure Warfare when in mid-1997 its Black Tigers carried out an e-mail bombing campaign which paralysed the communications of most Sri Lankan missions abroad.

In more recent times, suspected Sri Lankan cyber activists have circulated a new computer virus, akin to the now infamous amosu "Luv Bug" virus which originated in the Philippines. Named "Mawanella," the virus copies itself to the hard disk and thereafter replicates itself, copying the virus code to all out-going messages from the infected computer.

Designed to draw attention to politically instigated attacks against the Muslim community in the Sri Lankan town of Mawanella in May 2001, it is regarded as the first time that a virus has been designed to spread information relating to an ethnically-based incident or community.

However, most of the sites that project contested claims seem to be preaching to the converted. Ershad Mahmud, Research Officer at the Pakistan Institute of Policy Studies, who has done a study of the web sites on the various ethno-nationalist conflicts in the South Asian region has traced seventy-six sites relating to the Kashmir Conflict, forty-seven on the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict and seventy-three on the Chakma struggle.

Mahamud's assessment is that "less than 10% of the material in such sites can be said to be objective" and that "although many of these seek to give the appearance that they are run independently to promote a cause, most of them can be traced to being managed by interested governments or by the militant groups espousing causes in each of these struggles."

Contours of an Internet architecture relevant to South Asia

Fashioning an Intrernet architecture that could be deemed relevant to South Asian states requires a national, regional and international perspective, one that can view issues in an integrated manner rather than on a piece-meal basis.

Several pre-requisites need to be addressed urgently if the South Asian countries are to have the benefit of leap-frogging and are able to use the Internet to empower their people.

They include expansion of electricity coverage and telecommunication facilities in order to facilitate increased Internet connectivity. Prof. Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank believes that fibre optic cables are the most appropriate for Bangladesh, considering that they have already been laid out alongside the railway network throughout that country.

However, others argue that while this may be feasible for metropolitan areas, its costs would be prohibitive especially when bringing the Internet into the countryside. Arun Mehta sees wireless-based connectivity as the future of rural South Asia, particularly for 'last mile' connectivity. Mehta believes that given the lower literacy rtates, ending the State monopoly on Internet telephony is crucial if developing countries are to reap the full benefits of the Internet.

Enabling high speed data pathways by increasing international bandwidth and ISDN lines remains a considerable bottleneck which has to be overcome in order to ensure the furtherance of the IT industry in South Asian states. Prof. Y.K. Samaranayake observes that until such time that international bandwidth and accessibility improves affordability will not mean anything effectively making South Asian states lesser players on the information super highway.

Besides those in software parks in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, the present status of these variables in South Asia remains poor.

It is also imperative that Domestic Internet Exchanges (IX) interconnecting local ISPs be established within the respective South Asian states, to preclude having messages within a country relayed to the USA first and are sent back, as is presently happening. It is only in Sri Lanka that following a recent initiative of the Licensed Internet Service Providers Association (LISPA) and the State-led IT development agency, the Council for Information Technology (CINTEC), that a domestic exchange was instituted in June 2000.

As trade and other transactions within the region expand, it would be useful to contemplate the establishment of a South Asian Regional Internet Exchange and even one that might link up with the South East Asian states.

In evolving a policy framework and legislation that are responsive to the needs of the respective countries,it is imperative to avoid policy fragmentation and overlapping power centres in relation to the Internet. In most countries in South Asia, multiple conflicts of interests have resulted from the desire of the Telecommunications Ministry's to earn additional revenue through its monopoly of international telephone circuits. Consumers are denied the facility of making international calls that actually cost only a fraction of what they presently have to pay.

Similarly, the huge licence fees charged by the government on ISPs in most countries in the region result in these ISPs not venturing to provide speedier connectivity to its customers, which in turn weakens Internet communication all around. Palitha Silva Gunawardena, Director, Economic Affairs of the Sri Lanka Telecom Regulatory Commission (TRC) argues that regulation is imperative when stakeholders have unequal market power.

However, he emphasises the need for regulation measures to keep pace with the evolution of technology. He notes that regulation can be considerably simplified by adopting a Singapore style single 'Convergence Regulator' to cover all media - telephone, Internet, radio and possibly even television, rather than the prevailing fragmented mandates.

Such a policy framework should also include the development of a legal regime to facilitate E-commerce (including acceptance of electronic signatures), a revision of privacy laws for data protection, amendment of copyright/patent laws to prevent software piracy, enable admissibility of electronic data and messages as evidences in court and introduction of cyber laws to deal with computer crime, including hacking and attacks on information infrastructure. India's IT Policy framework already covers some of these issues.

Other countries which have yet to evolve such aspects have the opportunity of overcoming their handicaps by ensuring that policy and legislation in this regard take account of these aspects in an integrated manner. They can draw from the 'best practices' of developing countries that meet the specifics of the respective South Asian states. Particularly for countries like India, which will increasingly depend on the security of the net, if it is to reliably continue its prominent role in software development and transmission, and for both India and Pakistan, who have emerged as nuclear powers - ensuring cyber security would be of paramount importance.

Akshay Joshi, Research Scholar at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA), in New Delhi believes that the Indian Government, which has been quick in facilitating the development of the IT industry 'must take urgent measures to develop a Cyber Defence Plan for India in order to face up to the ramifications of the challenges posed by improvements in the field of ICT from not only the Kashmiri separatists but increasingly by the North-Eastern rebel groups as well.' Similar sentiments are expressed from Pakistan quarters where there is acute consciousness of the backwardness of Pakistan in the IT field when compared with the giant strides taken by India in recent times.

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