AYABONGA CAWE: Lessons from India: Cheap data critical in unlocking digital economy
Known as the Silicon Valley of India, the city is a hub for tech startups, many of which owe their existence to cheap access to the internet
President Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa has been inaugurated and we are waiting to hear who will be in his executive. A thousand kilometres from here, there would be similar novelty in the Indian parliament — Lok Sabha — following the resounding victory of BJP leader, Narendra Modi. In both election campaigns, the messages have been similar. Jobs, the economy and geopolitics feature prominently. Far from being “epoch-making” it has been a signal of a gradual realignment of politics in both nations. In SA, it has been a wake-up call for the ANC: in India, it has been the death knell for their ideological counterpart, the Indian National Congress. The once dominant Congress is now a shadow of its former self, a lesson that liberation movements across the post-colonial world, are not endowed with a divine and immutable claim to power. Governance, agility and economic management matter. In India, Congress is associated with the interests of the elite, dynasty politics — Rahul Gandhi, its ...
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