Knowledge-of crop prices, weather's behavior, oceanic movement, etc.-is scarce in villages. The same is true for the
farmers and fishermen of Tamil Nadu. In the late 90s, Prof MS Swaminathan, the septuagenarian plant geneticist whom the
United Nations Environment Program once described as 'the sather of economic ecology,' took upon himself the task of setting up an information delivery system for some villages.

Earlier, in the 60s, he was instrumental in pulling the country out of a famine crisis and eventually making her self-sufficient in food grains production. But for his breakthrough research on high-yield wheat, the Green Revolution would not have been possible.

So when the prof. set up the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) at Chennai with a seed money of $200,000 (coming from the General Foods World Food Prize he won in 1987), he raised hope in the hearts of many.

According to a paper published by MSSRF, a group of ten villages in Pondicherry were connected to each other and the Internet at one point of time.

"Internet connectivity is provided by dialup lines while locals produce the content. All this is conducted through a village center that's the central point for villagers."

"The kind of information provided in the village knowledge centers is specific to the needs of the rural community. It covers the prices of agricultural inputs (such as seeds, fertilizers, pesticides) and outputs (rice, vegetables), market (potential for export), entitlement (the multitude of schemes of the central and state governments, banks)."

"Other local information covered is health care (availability of doctors and paramedics in nearby hospitals, women's diseases), cattle diseases, transport (road conditions, cancellation of bus trips) and weather (appropriate time for sowing, areas of abundant fish catch, wave heights in the sea)."

"For example, weather information like wave heights and wind directions, so crucial to the fishing and farming communities in this coastal area, are downloaded by the project staff from a US Navy website. This is then translated into Tamil and broadcast over the public address system."

"All activities were preceded by a set of detailed surveys of the region (14 villages with a total population of 22,000) for incidence of poverty, status of literacy and education, and the state of telecom infrastructure."

"A separate survey was carried out with about 10 percent of the resident population to identify existing communication habits and channels of information flow. These surveys revealed the gaps and the local availability of skills to bridge them. A good picture of the rating of various information sources by the rural families was also generated."

The efforts of the foundation were recognized when IVRF won the Stockholm Award in 2001–02 under the Global Village category.

Deepak Kumar