Perspectives on ICTs and Development

A particularly interesting aspect of the ICT-D discourse in India and elsewhere around the world has been the popularity of telecentres as a preferred strategy of many different types of agencies. The agendes not only had different organizational purpose and goals, their objective(s) for deploying telecentres in rural areas also varied widely. To comprehend the emergence and popularity of telecentres as ICT-D interventions, a broad understanding of the thinking and practice on ICTs and Development becomes imperative. The purpose of this chapter is to put forth two perspectives on ICT-D. The dominant perspective espouses the ICTs for Development (ICT4D) by propounding the deployment of new technologies for spurring economic growth, facilitating governance reforms and enabling human development. On the other hand, the critical perspective calls for examining the discourse considering the political economy of technology and development. Together the two perspectives provide the theoretical background for investigating the linkages between ICTs, telecentres and development.