The World Development Report rightly highlights many of the benefits of these technologies. Developing countries have the opportunity to exploit these technologies to gain access to world markets and maximise their competitive advantages. Rural communities can exploit them to create employment and market their produce more effectively. Research and education can be greatly enhanced. Health systems can become more effective and reach more persons. Governments can become more efficient and accountable.

However, the spread of these technologies represents other equally important changes. The spread of information technologies represents a huge growth in person-to-person communication, in effect a decentralisation of communication away from government and towards individuals. Old vertical patterns of information, symbolised by the old state monopoly broadcasting systems are giving way to dynamic, less predictable and much less controllable horizontal systems of communication. Political systems can no longer control the information their citizens receive nor monitor or constrain how they communicate with each other. The capacity not just for North-South communication but also for South-South communication is being transformed as people in different developing regions forge new relationships and alliances. In short, those with access to these technologies are becoming more powerful and those who lack access are likely to become increasingly marginalised - politically and economically.

Nevertheless, while the benefits of these new knowledge networks will reach many - and not just the rich - they are unlikely to reach the poor and could further skew power structures against them. Improved and cheaper telecommunications could generate rural employment, could greatly enhance the integration of the rural with the national economy, improve living standards, ameliorate feelings of isolation, and potentially stem the steady migration of people from the countryside to the cities.

It could also increase the gap between the poorest and the rest of society. Like anything else, these technologies in themselves are neither beneficent nor malevolent.

What's new is the fact that information today can be moved around quickly. And this has presented all societies with challenges and opportunities. People's access to information and the level and quality of infrastructure available to them will define - to an extent - how well societies use and adapt the increased knowledge and information. New communications technologies hold the promise of helping to increase agricultural production, deliver better health and education services, and provide more effective and participatory governance.

That's all well and good. But how is India going to benefit? Money is becoming scarce for economies crippled by recent recessionary trends and slowing down of agriculture income. Besides the Indian Government has been desperately trying to cut back social sector spending. Infrastructure development except for the grandiose road-building project of the Prime Minister has come to naught. Sometimes certain infrastructure development initiatives by the Planning Commission mandarins is plain inappropriate.

On top of all this is the lackadaisical attitude of the regional satraps' political decisions, most of whom do not yet have in place any of the policies or strategies needed to tackle the many communication challenges. With the exception perhaps of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, other states have invested little in their information infrastructures, and in some cases have even failed to create an enabling environment for the private sector.

Instead, it has been typically left to international organisations and local NGOs to initiate early efforts. All this is not to say nothing noteworthy has happened. Rural "telecentres" - kiosks that offer everything from computers to telephones and email services - are the definite examples of innovative projects.