Report Highlights Importance of Digital Economy
By Krishan Dutt | IDN-InDepthNews Report
PARIS (IDN) – The 34-nation Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) faults rich and emerging countries of the bloc for lack of a national strategy on protecting online privacy or funding research in this area. This, it says in a new report, tends to be viewed as a matter for law enforcement authorities to handle.
The report titled OECD Digital Economy Outlook 2015 however notes that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are transforming the ways social interactions and personal relationships are conducted, with fixed, mobile and broadcast networks converging, and devices and objects increasingly connected to form the Internet of Things (IoT).
ICTs Operating In A Changing Environment
By Kalinga Seneviratne* | IDN-InDepth NewsInterview
BANGKOK (IDN) - The information and communication technology (ICT) sector is undergoing a period of major transition, changing the way we communicate with each other. These technologies are introducing new players to the industry, challenging traditional business models and regulatory frameworks.
IDN’s Kalinga Seneviratne spoke to Dr Rohan Samarajiva, a former telecom regulator in Sri Lanka, at the ITU Telecom World 2012 event in Bangkok in November 2013. Samarajiva is a professor of Communication and Public Policy at Ohio State University in the U.S. and the founding Chair of LIRNEasia (Learning Initiatives on Reforms for Network Economies Asia), an ICT policy and regulation think tank active across emerging economies in South and South East Asia, and the Pacific. He was its CEO until 2012.
What The Arab Spring Means For Freedom
By Megan Martin*
IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint
WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN) - Wielding mobile phones and computers, the young activists across the Middle East have altered the way the world approaches popular mobilization, social networks and Internet freedom.
Broadband Spreading Across Africa
By Santosh Anchan*
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
NEW DELHI (IDN) - Africa has been the world's fastest growing region over the last decade in terms of mobile penetration. While fixed line penetration has stagnated at 4% in the continent, mobile has grown at an astonishing rate to 45% with North Africa leading at 73%. However broadband is lagging behind considerably when compared to other continents.
No Quick Remedy for Africa's Internet Gap
By Adrian Craddock
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis*
LONDON (IDN) - Prior to the 2010 South Africa World Cup, submarine fibre optic cabling was laid to improve the speed and reliability of broadband. Despite this, Internet World Statistics reports that only 11.4 percent of Africans have internet access, far below the global average of 30.2 percent.
Considering that a World Bank study suggests every 10 percent of broadband penetration increases developing countries' per capita GDP growth by 1.38 percent, the scarcity of Africa's online network has significant economic repercussions.
Pyrrhic Victory for the Israeli Ship Of State
By Eric Walberg*
IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint
CAIRO (IDN) - Israel has extended its criminal siege of Gaza and occupation of the West Bank to Greek and other European airports. In doing so, it is encouraging anti-Jewish sentiment where there is none, by way of insisting it speaks on behalf of the world's Jews, its very raison d'etre being to act as a "safe haven" for them.
Human Rights Yes, Bombing No
By Pia Figueroa*
IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint
BONN (IDN) - Today it is not the state-owned media corporations that form public opinion, but transnational media companies at the service of multinationals in diverse sectors such as banking, industry and the military.
Summing up the situation, the Latin American thinker Silo said:"Capital worldwide continues to concentrate in ever fewer hands – until even the nation state depends for its survival on credit and loans. All must beg for investment and provide guarantees that give the banking system the ultimate say in decisions. Big capital dominates not only our objectivity, through its control of the means of production, but also our subjectivity, through its control of the means of communication and information."