It is amazing how much an improvement in the earning capacity mobile phones have brought in for the poor in India. The mobile penetration and the low rates have done much more to empower the auto driver, the priest, the jasmine seller, vegetable vendor, the house maid, the petty shop owner, the plumber, the electrician than any NREG or Nehru Rozgar Yojana scheme that the government uses to dole out freebies. To say the truth, the poor have leveraged the mobile much much more than the educated and the rich in India to further their economic interest. For them, it is a tool to earn more rather than a social networking tool. And that is as it should be. The mobile revolution has also enabled them to network professionally for now each one of them has created a network of other trade craftsmen/women to offer an integrated service to their clients. And they have not done a MBA to understand this concept. This stresses the importance of having better grass root level infrastructure to eradicate poverty rather than taking the route of welfare economics.
Is anyone out there hearing this message loud and clear?
