Global Information Highway

For more than five decades, the signature tune of ‘All India Radio’ has heralded each new day across the sprawling subcontinent. But today, India is witnessing a revolution in the mode and method of ferrying information. This is the story of India's emergence as a major player in the world of informatics, a new expression that defines the way we gather, refine and disseminate information through a complex maze of computers and satellites. In India, the first telegraph line from Calcutta to Agra, city of the fabled Taj Mahal, was opened by the British rulers as early as 1853. The telephone arrived in India soon after its invention by Graham Bell in 1876. In fact, when Mahatma Gandhi was killed at a prayer meeting in New Delhi in 1948, the news hit Europe even before most of India could know of the catastrophe. Thanks to telephone. Such was the technological prowess with which Britain had sought to secure the most prized colony in its vast Empire. The radio had soon followed the telephone into India, reflecting Britain's eagerness to keep in close communication with the sprawling, if an increasingly restive, subcontinent.