India moves up to 43 spot on Network Readiness Index

Riding high on the waves of telecom revolution, India has move up to 43 on the Network Readiness Index (NRI), which is jointly calculated by Wold Economic Forum (WEF) and INSEAD. The index is a platform for measuring how the benefits of information and communication technologies have been gathered by countries in increasing growth and development, writes Padameshwar Singh Nongthombam of Whatblog.com.

According to Irene Mia, the Director and a Senior Economist at the WEF, India's performance is commendable. But since India is slower than other nations in terms of infrastructures and usage, it could have been even better. She further adds that India's digital divide is due to its economic divide.

In the list, which has been led by Sweden, Vietnam has moved up to 54 from 70 and Pakistan has moved from 98 to 87. While China and Brazil are at 37 and 61 respectively, the U.S. is at the fifth position. Although both U.S. and Malaysia are better than India in many of the counts, India surpassed these two countries with a ranking of 7 in terms of individual readiness.

The report also shows that India has a low rate of PC and internet penetration. For every 100 people in the country, there were 5.1 internet users in 2009. Compared to India, Brazil and China have respectively 39 percent and 28.5 percent of their population using the internet. However, India is just behind China in mobile phones penetration with 600 million subscribers at present. 

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