Mark Zuckerberg is leaving no stone unturned when it comes to connecting the world. And we make for a significant part of his universe, where "as of today, everyone in India nationwide can access free internet services for health, education, jobs and communication through Internet.org's Free Basics app on the Reliance network."
Zuckerberg's Facebook post particularly talks about an Indian family in Maharashtra, who, by using Internet.org's Free Basics app, have successfully achieved better results for their farming efforts.
In a major step to expand its presence in India, Facebook released its controversial free Internet service Internet.org(now Free basics) to all over India in collaboration with Reliance telecom.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in his post on facebook said that now evert person in Indian can avail free internet. Zuckerberg also shared the story of a farmer who was benefited through his programme.
“We just took another step towards connecting India. As of today, everyone in India nationwide can access free internet services for health, education, jobs and communication through Internet.org’s Free Basics app on the Reliance network.” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post.
Zuckerberg wrote, “Ganesh struggled with traditional farming methods in a region plagued by droughts, but last year he started using Free Basics—accessing services like AccuWeather, which helped him work better through the monsoon season, and Reuters Market Light, which helped him understand commodity prices and get a better deal for his crops. By using Free Basics, Ganesh has doubled his crop yield, eradicated insect infestations and even invested in new crops and livestock.”
Internet.org(Now Free basics) will allow users to access some websites (as chosen by Facebook) for free or at very low data cost. Here, the cyber experts accuse Facebook of discriminating between the websites as it will only provide access to the portals which are favoured by the internet giant.
Actually, Facebook’s Internet.org is a partnership between social networking services company Facebook and six companies (Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Opera Software, Nokia and Qualcomm) which claims to bring affordable access to selected Internet services to less developed countries.
The service claims to increase efficiency, and facilitating the development of new business models around the provision of Internet access.
The service is accused of violating net neutrality and favoring Facebook’s own services over its rivals. It is said that Facebook will set ''free service'' service as a bait for its users and hamper the bussiness of its rival. On the other hand, it will dominate the choice of the users about website.
Experts believe that this will lead to a cable TV like system where service provides on one hand charge the different channels to be aired to their users and on other hand they charge the users for subscriptions to different channels as required by them to draw out maximum profits.
Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Monday, 23 November 2015
We just took another step towards connecting India.
As of today, everyone in India nationwide can access free internet services for health, education, jobs and communication through Internet.org's Free Basics app on the Reliance network.
Why does this matter?
Just look at the story of Ganesh Nimbalkar and his wife Bharati, who support their family of four by farming a five acre plot their family has tended for generations in Maharashtra.
Ganesh struggled with traditional farming methods in a region plagued by droughts, but last year he started using Free Basics -- accessing services like AccuWeather, which helped him work better through the monsoon season, and Reuters Market Light, which helped him understand commodity prices and get a better deal for his crops.
By using Free Basics, Ganesh has doubled his crop yield, eradicated insect infestations and even invested in new crops and livestock.
Today, nearly 1 billion people are currently without internet access in India. Now with Internet.org's Free Basics available to everyone in India, many more people like Ganesh and Bharati will have access to the information and opportunity the internet brings.
No comments:
Post a Comment