The Politics of Digital India Between Local Compulsions and Transnational Pressures

This book locates Digital India in context. It deals with the many ways in which Digital India is shaped by local pressures and political expediencies as much as by global pressures, namely from one of India's strongest allies, the USA. However, this relationship with the USA is by no means straightforward and this book illustrates the highs and lows of this relationship. As importantly, this book deals with the larger Indian reality in which the digital is but one sector, albeit an increasingly important one. There are other sectors including agriculture and the informal sectors on which many million Indians depend on their livelihoods. These sectors too are becoming exposed to the digital and this has resulted in the presence of multiple digital spheres in India. This book deals with the ambivalent Indian State that is on the one hand attempting to control its citizens through some of these digital spheres while also investing in public access projects such as Digital India and resisting the power of Big Brother, namely the USA. This is an important contribution to understanding Digital India precisely because it attempts to account for some of its complexities.

About the Author: Pradip Ninan Thomas is at the School of Communication and Arts, University of Queensland. He has written widely on the media in India, the political economy of communications, communications for social change and the media and religion in globally renowned journals inclusive of the Journal of Communication, Media, Culture & Society., the European Journal of Communications and the Economic & Political Weekly. His most recent books include 'Communications for Social Change: Context, Social Movement and the Digital (2018), Empire & Post-Empire Telecommunications in India: A History (2019). He lives in Brisbane with his wife, Preetha, and Golden Retriever, Moss. His hobbies include bush walking, natural history, and listening to the Blues and he does have a weakness for Real Ale. About the Series Editors: Adrian Athique is associate professor in cultural studies at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Vibodh Parthasarathi is associate professor at the Centre for Culture, Media and Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India. S.V. Srinivas is professor at the School of Liberal Studies, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, India.