The digital divide is becoming more and more conspicuous term in this IT world, the digital divide is not only confined to developed countries but now these days it is over phrased which is used in developing countries also. The digital divide is a term which was mostly used by the developed countries of the west, but now it is emerging in the developing countries also like in India and China. The Industrial Revolution divided the world into two large blocks, while the industrialized countries amassed significant wealth and power, those countries that were unable to change their pre-industrial forms of production experienced mounting economic and social problems. Starting in the industrialized countries, the ICT revolution seems to be perpetuating this divide.

The digital divide is also a concern for Indian society, as Indian society is highly divided and stratified one. In Indian society inequality is perpetuated from time immemorial, the distinction of caste, class and gender has generally persisted in determining the dispensation of the envisaged new social order, especially in rural areas. Many changes have taken places with the advent of Information Technological devices like radio, television; have helped immensely in spreading awareness among the marginalized sections regarding their rights. The access to internet is crucial in determining the equality in Indian society by fair access to the internet for all irrespective of gender, caste and class. But today our planner are apprehensive to introduce these technologies despite various hurdles like lack of drinking water, electricity, poor health facilities, poverty etc, do not make it an easy choice for the government to invest heavily in the Information and Communication Technology sector.

The number of internet users world wide, is expected to touch 2.2 billion by 2013 and India is projected to have the third largest online population during the same time, says a report. “The number of people online around the world will grow more than 45% to 2.2 billion users by 2013 and Asia will continue to be the biggest internet growth engine.” India will be the third largest internet user base by 2013 with China and US taking the first two spots, respectively, technology and market research firm Forrester Research said in a report. Globally there were about 1.5 billion internet users in the year 2008. Titled ‘Global Online Population Forecast, 2008 to 2013’, the report noted that emerging markets like India would see a growth of 10 to 20 % by 2013 (Times of India, New Delhi: 27/07/2009 P-1).

The regional digital divide is another concern in the developed as well as in developing countries. The regions have influence over the access to ICT and its benefit. The United Nations Development Programme Human Development Report 2001 indicates that in most countries, internet users are predominantly urban and located in certain regions. As so far in India, we have barely 30 million telephone connections and less than 4.5 million Internet connections for its 1000 million people. Most of these connections are confined to large cities (around 100 cities). India has a large number of rural villages that do not have telephone connectivity. Within India the digital divide between rural and urban India is rather large.

The developing country like China is also facing the same problem i.e. the regional digital divide. Eastern China has maintained the strongest Internet and other telecommunication networks, while West China, especially its rural areas, has the lack of internet connectivity and has weakest infrastructure. The CNNIC report in January 2004 showed that a higher penetration rate among Internet users is concentrated in major cities; the top is Beijing at a 28 percent, followed by Shanghai at 26.6 percent, Guangzhou at 14.4 percent, and Tianjin at 12.1 percent. In contrast, Western China represented a lower Internet penetration rate among the regional population, and Yunnan, Qinghai, and Tibet have lower than 4 percent penetration rate (http://www.tcomschool.edu/pdf/Shuho.pdf).

The access to internet is highly stratified among different ethnic groups in China, as a united multi ethnic nation, China has 56 ethnic groups. The majority of the population is of the Han ethnic group, China’s other ethnic groups are customarily referred to as the national minorities. The Zhuang ethnic group comprises 155.558 lakh of populations, which is concentrated in the regions like Guangxi which have 8% of internet access, the Yunnan which have 6.2% internet access and Guangdong which have 19.9% of internet access. Another ethnic group Hui comprises 86.120 lakh of populations which are concentrated in regions like Ninxia which have 7%of internet access, Gansu which have 5.9% of internet access and Henan which comprises 5.5% of internet access.
Miao ethnic group have population 73.836 lakh, which is concentrated in region like Guizhou which comprises 3.8% of internet access, Hunan have 6.4% of internet access. The Ozbek ethnic group has 0.148 lakh of population which is concentrated in Xinjiang which has 7.7% of internet access and Jino ethnic group comprises population 0.180 lakh which is concentrated in Yunnan which has 6.2% internet access (http://www.asia-planet.net/china/ population.htm).

India and China are unfriendly nations, share a common border, and have different forms of government. The world cannot ignore India and China with almost 40% of the world’s population, with growing middle classes (larger than most nations) that are important consumers in the global market as well as increasingly important global producers, and with aspirations to super power status, these two nations are forces to be reckoned with. This is as true ICT as it is in strategic or demographic terms. Although these two contiguous countries have very different political and economic systems, both have assigned high priority to Information Technology (IT) and the Internet. It is likely that these new technologies will come to play a pivotal role in their internal developments and their relations with the rest of the world. But the role each assigns to ICT development within their borders is distinctive. These differences can be considered as a huge cross national natural experiment, shedding light on Internet diffusion and development in general, and the relative strengths and weaknesses of each nation’s approach (www.nasscom.org/ articles).

The comparison of India and China is intended to highlight the importance of the Internet access, which together are home to approx 40% of world’s population. It compares the recent trends in the growth of Internet users and Internet connections in the two countries. It explores the problems encountered in its proliferation and examines the factors, which might play crucial role in its future growth. China holds the clear edge over India in terms of number of Internet users and Internet hosts; India is better rated when it comes to e-readiness. Internet is still out of reach of rural population in both the countries and both need to have low cost local language based computing devices for the use of rural population to access Internet. Internet has become an important enabling technology. It can improve governance by raising efficiency, transparency and by increasing people’s participation in the governing process. It offers huge economic opportunities through development of information and communication technology. It can help in improving environment management through Geographical Information System and early warning systems. Social and human right conditions can be improved by expanding access to better education and healthcare.

It can help in knowledge sharing and creating awareness among people. Above all, it can help in reducing poverty by opening new opportunities for woman, the poor and rural population. This is particularly important for India and China, both of which have a large percentage of impoverished people with a large part of the population living in rural areas lacking even basic telephone services. While China has pursued a policy of strong government initiative coupled with encouraging competitions among government owned organizations, India has set policy through publicly visible task forces (http://www.market lineinfo.com/library).

It is also imperative to understand how is India and China’s growth as compared to the growth of Internet Access in the world. The global internet access market grew by 13% in 2008 to reach a value of $184.8 billion. The compound annual growth rate of the market in the period 2004-2008 was 14.9%. In 2013, the global internet access market is forecast to have a value of $298.8 billion, an increase of 61.7% since 2008. The compound annual growth rate of the market in the period 2008-2013 is predicted to be 10.1%. Thus, the growth rate of both India and China is much higher as compared to the growth rate of Internet Access Market across the globe. India and China both fare well in terms of current as well as future growth rate. When compared against countries within Asia- Pacific, India leads the internet access market, with 48.6% of the total revenues.

In comparison, China accounts for a further 26.9% of the market's revenue. By comparing, Indian Internet Access Market growth rate with that of Chinese, it reflects that the Indian market is growing faster than the Chinese market. But it would not be prudent to conclude that this indicates that the Indian Internet Access is performing better. India has currently just 11.1 million subscribers, whereas China has already 77.7 million internet users. Given, the similar population size and demographics of both the nations, this is a huge difference, indicating that India is lagging behind China in the Internet Access market and has a long way to go before it catches up with its neighbor. The differences act as an experiment, shedding light on Internet diffusion and development in general. India and China are home to a large percentage of the world's impoverished people. Trends in growth of Internet Users must succeed in India and China. Internet is diffusing rapidly in India and China.

India was connected to Internet earlier than China when Department of Electronics established ERNET (Educational and Research Network) in 1986 with the help of United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Internet connectivity in China started in 1993, and by 1994, China had twice the number of Internet hosts and 3.5 times Internet users as compared to India. It can be observed that China though started late and was in the back foot originally, it gathered momentum and superseded India over the years. Having ascertained that China is placed better with respect to India in terms of number and consistent growth, let us now try to analyze the reasons behind China’s success in increasing Internet usage (http://www.slideshare.net/natarajpangal/internet-usage-india-vs-chia).

The less democratic country has had greater success in Internet diffusion than the more democratic country, outcomes that have to do with the relative ease or difficulty of trying to implement reforms under Indian democracy, in contrast to the Chinese authority’s ability simply to command. In brief, India began with a head start in the late 1980s but was overtaken by China in the 1990s. Today, the gap continues to grow in some areas but in others the Indians have started to improve their performance relative Sophistication of Use.

The following factors were important in shaping China’s lead over India.

· Chinese economic reforms, which began in the late 1980s, provided both capital for and openness to the Internet.

· The pre Internet Chinese decision to invest in telecommunication infrastructure and information technology industries provided complementary infrastructure and human resources for the Internet.

· The Chinese ability to execute by decree rather than consensus building followed by legislative and regulatory reform accelerated the diffusion of the Internet.

· The Chinese were able to create competition among government owned organizations without taking time for legislative change and the raising of private capital.

· The Chinese were able to establish competitors to the incumbent telephone company relatively rapidly. Although these factors jumpstarted the Chinese Internet, and will continue to work in its favor, market forces and openness of access and content may serve India well in the long run (www.nasscom.org/articles/ annual-result.asp).

The comparison of Chinese and Indian Internets on six dimensions: pervasiveness, geographic dispersion, sectoral absorption, connectivity infrastructure, organizational infrastructure, and sophistication of use. China is found to equal or exceed India on each dimension. Explanations for this situation are offered by comparing determining factors in telecommunication infrastructure, human resources, equipment and the economy, and government interest and support. (http://www.isoc.org/inet99).

Both the government is doing their best effort to tackle the problem of digital divide in India and China. Different digital opportunities & initiatives have been taken place in both the nation. India has made desperate efforts in bridging the digital divide. It discusses several ongoing projects and programs initiated by the government, non-government organizations and private business houses, and describes some of the challenges faced by the country in overcoming these barriers. Some of the projects initiated by the government to reach remote and rural areas like “Grameen Sanchar Sevak,” “Gyan Doot,” in Madhaya Pradesh, the CARD and e–Seva projects in Andhara Pradesh, etc. It further discusses Digital Library Projects, viz. the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) and Vidya Vahini, digital mobile libraries and library networks and community information centers. The paper also mentions the role of educational institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology in reducing the information gap by launching projects like Infometa and Webel, and it discusses the role of private business houses and Indian dot-com companies in information dissemination (Neena Singh, http://www.worlib.org/vol17).

China is also making attempt to reduce the problem of digital divide. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in China is running a 2.5 million dollar project for taking internet access to rural areas of China. Also, the ‘Go West’ project in the Tenth Five-Year Plan (2001-2005) calls for the improvement of infrastructure in Western regions. Although it mainly aims at improving transportation infrastructure, approximately one million kilometers of new fibre-optic were laid alongside the installation of satellite telecommunications facilities between the years 2001-5. China is using a DOT Force Strategy to tackle this problem. China is also bridging the widening internet connection gap between rural and urban areas, the Chinese government has recently launched the “Every Village has a Phone” and “Gold Farm Engineering” project, which promotes telephone access and Internet application in rural areas. The state is also allowed the private sector to provide information services.

CONCLUSION:

With the advent of the ICT, a new trend has emerged in the world which is technically known as ‘Digital Divide’. In general sense, digital divide implies the gap among those who have access to digital technologies and those who do not have such access. The usage of the term is not only limited to some developed countries of the world. But it is becoming more and more problematic in developing countries alike. Initially, the term referred to the gaps in the ownership of the computers. But now the term is used not only to the internet access but by an access to ICT that the different segments of society can use. In the most basic sense, the term digital divide is the ever growing gap between those people and communities who have access to ICTs and those who do not have it. The term popularly refers to the use of internet technology in particular. As telecommunication increasingly witnesses itself with educational, social, financial and employment opportunities; the communities which lack access to ICTs find themselves falling far behind the rest of the society. The internet has the potential to empower its users with new skills, new perspectives and new opportunities. Those groups that remain isolated from this technology will be further segregated in to the periphery of the main stream public life.

There is a debate, whether the ICT has the potential to include those who lack basic necessities like safe drinking water, sufficient food intake, shelter, cloth, proper sanitation, or the ICT is the added dimension in the inequality which is perpetuated in the countries like India and China.

It may be concluded that the neighboring country of India that is China is also facing the digital divide. China is facing the problem of digital divide due to imbalance of diffusion of ICT infrastructure, high on line charges, insufficient qualified staff, and imperfect network regulation and information resource shortage in the Chinese language. Close attention should also be paid to the digital divide between regions, urban and rural areas, social segments with different income and education levels, and gender.

The digital divide is mainly categorized by regional differences and urban concentration within China, in terms of a few highly developed regions with vast undeveloped regions. 50% of the rural areas, especially in Western China still do not have access to basic telecommunication services due to the high cost of infrastructure. While Eastern China has maintained the strongest Internet and other telecommunication networks, West China, especially its rural areas, has the weakest infrastructure and lacks essential Internet connectivity. The access to ICT among different ethnic groups of china is also influenced by their geographical concentration. The ethnic groups which are concentrated in the eastern regions have higher access to ICT than those who are concentrated in western China.

In India too, more than 1.3 million of the total 1.4 million Internet connections are concentrated in Delhi, Mumbai, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. Most net users are better educated and wealthier.

The digital divide is, in effect, a reflection of broader, existing socio economic inequalities that can be characterized by insufficient infrastructure, high cost of access, inappropriate or weak policy regimens, inefficiencies in the provision of telecommunication networks and services, lack of locally created content, and uneven ability to derive economic and social benefits from information intensive activities.

In a nutshell, digital divide is a new emerging trend which has a global concern. This problem is not only a concern for developed countries of the west. But, it is also becoming a problem in developing countries like India and China. Despite all efforts made by India and China to curb this problem, still it is continuing and getting perpetuated in both the countries. It requires many innovative steps to bridge this gap.

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Received on 10.08.2011

Accepted on 11.09.2011