Today, internet has become one of the fastest tools to promote and defend freedom and to facilitate democratic access to information and knowledge. It has emerged as a part of the vital infrastructure of global social, economic, cultural and political life. The Internet’s effect on our lives is pervasive. Over the past decade, the use of e-mail, the web and blogs have become part of the daily routine of our lives.

Today the Internet access touch points have outgrown the traditional PC browsers to desktop applications, mobile phones and satellite navigational devices in vehicles and living rooms. More and more people are buying movie tickets, air tickets, travel packages, railway tickets, paying bills online. Online chat and blogs is reducing the gap between private and public life of the present generation. Cyber cafes have taken over pubs and bars for socializing in spite of the opposing forces of regional borders, copyright, censorship, network blocking, etc.

The internet revolution is definitely started but has a long way to go. Though it is common to see everyone from maid servants to senior citizens with cell phones, you will rarely find a maid who visits a cyber cafe to check her email. This has to do with opportunity cost involved in spending time in cyber cafes. Most of Indians are denied access to the Internet because they don’t have a connection or a computer and other reason is that the digital revolution is leaving them behind because they don’t, speak English, the dominant language of the Web.

Hindi is the world’s fourth most widely spoken language but it has not yet made in the top 10 languages on the Internet. It is recognized that the content has to be in a language that is understood by many users. Worldwide efforts are on to provide user-friendly tools for language independent search and retrieval, and machine translation of text from English to another language and vice-versa. Dearth of content in other Indian languages could limit the growth of the number of Internet users in the country as growth is almost saturating among English speaking users in India. A multilingual Internet will increase local interest in Internet content and increase the possibilities for all language groups to share and access information in their own language.

Different internet products in India have different audiences, a good portion of Indian net users are still constrained by what the Indian net has meant to them. In the context of entertainment, lifestyle and recreational activities, local language versions have a niche market. High-speed networks will make it possible for professionals to work in ways never before possible. For instance, scientists around the world can share specialized equipment like electron microscopes.
For instance Virtual Collaborative Clinics connects medical facilities allowing doctors to manipu-late high-resolution, 3-D images of MRI scans and other medical imaging. Not only can doctors consult and diagnose, but they can simulate surgery by using a ‘Cyber Scalpel’. Virtual surgery gives surgeons an opportunity to practice before even entering the operating room, reducing the time required for the actual procedure.

Don’t be surprised when you see everything from your car to your refrigerator will be connected to the global network, communicating with each other wirelessly. Welcome to the internet world.