Read

Doctor, Vikram (2004): Digital Drift: A decade on, the cyber cafe
rocks in India, rolls out of fashion in the West, The Economic Times,
New Delhi, September 5, Sunday, pp 1&3.

Available online under the caption:Cyber cafe goes cold in the West at

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/839542.cms

My comments:

Mistake 1: Make no first mistake. Cyber cafes are not only going to
stay here in India but bloom very vigorously in times to come as more
and more (public and private) services go online.

Mistake 2: Make no second mistake. The number of cyber cafes is
inversely proportional to a country's ICT prosperity. So no reason to
celebrate if you have more cyber cafes.

Factoid 1: India already has the highest number of cyber cafes in the
world.

Factoid 2: India does not have the highest cyber café density in
the world. The distinction goes to Senegal.

Forecast for India: India is going to remain the World Champion in
the highest number of cyber cafes for a very long time to come.

Lesson for the Developing World: Any one who backs cyber café is
on the right track. Cyber cafes are the prime accelerator for
accelerating the pace of ongoing ICT revolution and hold tremendous
employment potential. They alone can take the benefits of ICTs to the
remotest part of the country.

They are in the first decade of 21st century what the transistor
radio was in 1960s and 19700s in India.

D.C.Misra
New Delhi
September 6, 2004