It revolution has done more harm than good to India?

Answer 1

Information technology (IT) is "the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications" The term in its modern sense first appeared in a 1958 article published in the Harvard Business Review,

Well,this article should have been written earlier as it provides good insight on some facts, which would actually have helped many in the Group Discussions.Starting off with first the "Overhyped IT" and then discussing about the advantages and disadvantages of this.

IT:Information Technology

Information technology (IT), is "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware".(Source:wiki)

All of us are aware of what IT is, and what it has brought to India.Today we see IT touching lives of many people, even my Carpenter and Tailors have their sons abroad in Germany and US. Let's admit the fact IT has changed many lives.

Why I say IT is Overhyped

Today we boast of IT as the lone savior of the nation and state that the contributions of the services sector is 53-54% in total GDP.Though the services sector also includes transportation(Railways,Trucks),Hotels and

Restaurants,Storage,Communication(Telephone,Mobiles),Banking,real estate,Public Administration..etc

but we never mention them.Services has always been the single biggest contributor in India's GDP since the very begining,

Consider these facts:

Services sector Contribution to India GDP(1980-81)- 40.99%

Services sector Contribution to India GDP(1990-91)- 43.69%

Services sector Contribution to India GDP(1998-99)- 51.16%

Services sector Contribution to India GDP(2007-08)- 53.7%

.......Read more[source]

So we can clearly see the statistics that when our IT services firm Infosys,Satyam..etc were emerging that was the time when services sector made huge progress in percentage contribution to GDP. And since past 10 years the growth has more or less been stagnant where we start boasting of IT. IT's contribution currently is mere 5.7% currently which has risen from 1.2% in 2001.

Secondly,it is overhyped also because I.T might have helped many middle or lower middle class people to improve their lifestyles ,because only such people believe in giving their children quality education exp. English, which is a pre-requisite for IT. The Total services sector involves roughly around 1/3 one third of the total working population of India.Aggriculture which has beed the backbone or the major field where maximum persons(more than 50% of the total working population) are involved contributes a mere 17.2%,which has seen a declining trend.There most of the people have declining or almost the same living standards, whereas the country as a whole has improved a lot.

Why IT is Overhyped?

The only reason for this is that IT has made India a brand overseas.India also is capitalizing on its large numbers of well-educated people skilled in the English language to become a major exporter of software services and software workers(Which actually is very small compared to total working population).

IT has helped governments in getting huge tax collections which is why governments also want to promote it as brand India.India is now a Global IT Superpower and a front-runner in the age of Information Revolution.IT has risen and has risen quite sharply in the recent past but the whole nation has also been becoming more prosperous but not because only of IT.

Yes IT has been great but lets not over do it.

IT's total contribution might have risen a Ten Fold from 4.8 to 47.8$ Billion in last 10 years but its still a 5.7% of total GDP.The reason i want to highlight this is because if India has really been shining then there would not be people starving in Orissa or Andhra pradesh farmers commiting suicides.Only a fraction of Indian population has emerged and taken the benefit of IT , think what we can achieve if we use not only 1/3(as in services) but 100% (or 50% as in aggriculture) of our working population like what we have been able to achieve in IT.