Bridging the Digital Divide: Akshaya as a Model

The question of digital divide has always been haunting the policy planners, the Information Technology industry, social scientists and administrators since the dawn of the information revolution. The issue seems to be much more complicated and compounded in the developing world where access to quality education is limited to only a few privileged sections. This was put on the agenda of public opinion, political discussion and mass media attention. Hundreds of conferences of computer professionals, social scientists and policy makers worldwide were dedicated to the issue. Commonly, the digital divide was defined as the gap between those who do and those who do no have access to computers and the Internet. Access, in the sense of physical access, relates to having a personal computer and Internet connection. It is another issue whether or not this access will bring any tangible benefits to the user if one considers that he or she is living in an Information Society where information is treated as functional knowledge. In this paper, an attempt is made to look at the issue of digital divide in India from the perspectives of social, economic, culture and gender while evaluating the success or failure of a particular e-governance programme. Also, effort will be made to present a theoretical framework to address the problem of digital divide with Akshaya programme in Kerala as an example.