Moving Beyond Digital Literacy and Towards e-Governance in Rural India
Saurabh Sood, Niti Saxena · 2017
The ongoing Digital India Programme envisions universal digital literacy. This reflexive piece considers the context of this bold declaration to universalize digital literacy in rural India. We present civil society perspective on social challenges of achieving universal digital literacy and review current discourse around benefits of Digital India Programme in effecting e-governance in rural settings. No tangible evidence exists to support universalizing digital literacy as an essential condition to realize the benefits of e-governance or for social or economic interests of rural population. The paper concludes with research needs to endorse universal digital literacy as the means to include rural Indians in the process of transforming India into a knowledge economy through e-governance.