India's efforts to capitalise on the information and communication
technology revolution are far from spectacular when it comes to numbers,
going by the latest country rankings and associated data released by
the International Telecommunication Union. The basis for the ranking is
an ICT Development Index (IDI).
ICT development ranking of select countries
| Country | ICT development ranking▲ | ICT development index | Access sub-index ranking | Use sub-index ranking | Skills sub-index ranking |
| Korea* | 1 | 8.57 | 11 | 2 | 1 |
| Sweden | 2 | 8.45 | 7 | 1 | 15 |
| Iceland | 3 | 8.36 | 3 | 7 | 10 |
| US | 17 | 7.53 | 29 | 14 | 3 |
| Brazil | 62 | 5 | 67 | 57 | 72 |
| China | 78 | 4.18 | 80 | 66 | 93 |
| Sri Lanka | 107 | 3.06 | 104 | 115 | 90 |
| India | 121 | 2.21 | 122 | 121 | 117 |
| Pakistan | 129 | 1.83 | 119 | 132 | 143 |
| Bangladesh | 135 | 1.73 | 133 | 139 | 127 |
| Niger** | 157 | 0.99 | 148 | 152 | 157 |
Click column header to sort data. *At the top of the table. **Ranked last. Source: Measuring the Information Society 2013
India has been ranked 121st among 157 countries in terms of progress in
the realm of information and communication technology (ICT) in a
newly-released report of the International Telecommunication Union
(ITU), which makes an annual assessment based on a wide range of
parameters and data.
The ranking has been made on the basis of an ICT Development Index (IDI), a benchmark made up of 11 indicators.
It comes in the wake of the Broadband Commission for Digital
Development, in a recent report, ranking India 145th among nearly 200
countries in terms of the percentage of individuals using the Internet
and 106th in the case of mobile broadband penetration.
Though India's IDI score had gone up from 2.13 in 2011 to 2.21 in 2012
in the report 'Measuring the Information Society 2013' released on
October 7, its ranking declined from 120 to 121 during this period.
India's rankings in three sub-indexes which relate to access, skills and
use, on which the IDI is based, are also in a similar range. In the
skills sub-index, which evaluates ICT capability or skills in terms of
indicators that include adult literacy as well as gross secondary and
tertiary enrollment, India was ranked 117 in 2012, the same position it
had occupied in 2011.
In terms of the use sub-index, which broadly measures the uptake of ICTs
and the intensity of usage based on parameters such as Internet users
per 100 inhabitants, fixed (wired)-broadband subscriptions per 100
inhabitants, and wireless-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants,
India has been ranked 121st, up from 124 in 2011.
And the access sub-index rankings place India in the 122nd position,
down from 114 a year ago. This sub-index has to do with ICT readiness in
terms of fixed-telephone subscriptions, mobile cellular telephone
subscriptions, international Internet bandwidth per Internet user,
percentage of households with a computer, and percentage of households
with Internet access.
Among countries in the region, the report takes note of the gains
Bangladesh has made, up by four places to 135th in the latest IDI, with
maximum gains in the access sub-index.
The report includes India among a group of 39 least connected countries
(LCCs) with low IDI 2012 values. "In these LCCs, most ICT access and use
is limited to basic voice and low-speed data services. While a number
of LCCs have reached relatively high levels of mobile-cellular
penetration, more advanced ICT services, including broadband Internet
access, remain very limited," the report said. Most of the countries in
this group are the least developed ones in Africa.
In terms of overall global rankings, the Republic of Korea, with a value
of 8.57, leads the world, a track record it has set in recent years.
The Nordic countries Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Finland and Norway follow
with the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Luxembourg and Hong Kong (China)
also finding a place among the top ten.
Digital natives
A new dimension that the report adds to the discourse on ICT is the
increasing importance of 'digital natives' in the scheme of things:
youths between 15 and 24, with at least five years' experience using the
Internet.
Though India and some other countries like China, US and Brazil are
predominant in terms of having large populations of digital natives,
other countries like Iceland, New Zealand and Republic of Korea are in
the fore when it comes to penetration in terms of the percentage of
youth using the Internet. The trend is for high-population countries
have high absolute numbers of digital natives, and for high-income
countries to have digital natives making up a relatively high percentage
of their population.
"Out of a total of 145 million young Internet users in the developed
countries, 86.3 per cent are estimated to be digital natives, compared
with less than half of the 503 million young Internet users in the
developing world. Within the next five years, the digital native
population in the developing countries is forecast to more than double,"
the report said. And that will make a difference to these countries.
