India’s rocketing internet-user growth has stalled
That is a major worry for a country pushing digitisation
When india implemented its first lockdown in 2020 and its schools moved over to online learning, Sharmila found herself in a quandary. She is a maid in the posh western suburbs of Mumbai; she had enrolled her son and daughter in a fee-paying school. But her family possessed a single smartphone. So her children would either both have to skip some online classes or one would have to miss them all. Happily, her employers gave her a second smartphone, at a cost of 10,000 rupees ($122). That is more than Sharmila’s monthly wage.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Digital dead zones”
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