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A mere Web site or a laptop doesn’t empower the underprivileged. Developing countries like India need technology, yes, but what they need more are coherent projects with reliable delivery systems that link technology to the country’s needs.

A Reuters story, ‘Indian village uploads itself onto Internet,’ was picked up by a lot of newspapers around the world this past weekend. By ‘uploads,’ all that was meant was that Hansdehar: Pop. 1753, the north Indian village in question, got itself a Web site.

Big Deal.

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Helion Venture Partners that recently debuted its $140 million India fund has made its first investment: $2.2 million in JiGrahak Mobility Solutions, reports Business Standard.

NG Pay, the Bangalore-based startup’s product, is a downloadable mobile application that allows users to make payments and buy things using their mobile phones. “Ji Grahak” is Hindi for “Yes, customer.” Helion Venture’s partners Ashish Gupta and Kanwaljit Singh will join the JiGrahak board.

India’s mobile value added services space is getting more and more attention from venture capital as the number of mobile subscribers in India is rising rapidly. The country has 111.23 million mobile subscribers as of the end of July, according to figures released today by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. (PDF release.)

Last month, Kleiner Perkins, Caulfield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures invested around $5 million in PayMate, a mobile payment company. In February Sequoia Capital India and Intel Capital invested $10 million in Mauj Telecom, which provides mobile value-added services like games and ring tones.

If you plan to visit beautiful Bhutan, do so early next year and you will be able to use the country’s new broadband network, reports kuenselonline.com. India’s ORG Telecom Limited will build, integrate and test the network which is expected to be operational from January. The service will be available in the core urban areas of Thimphu, Paro, Phuentsholing, Wangduephodrang, Trongsa and Kanglung. These locations already have higher capacity backbone connections in place, but there is no last mile broadband access.

Currently, dial-up connectivity via Druknet, Bhutan Telecom’s Internet service provider, is between 14.4 kbps to 52.2 kbps. This is expected to increase to 512 kbps or higher once the network is completed. Druknet has about 5,000 dial-up users and while the number of users has remained about the same over the years, usage had gone up. The pricing plans have not been worked out, but the DSL based service could in the future also support triple pay services - video, voice and data.

A few days after in announced plans to set up a R&D Center in China, Google has now decided to invest up to $1 billion on a back office in Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, according to news reports. The proposed center, which the Indian government just approved, will likely be spread over a million square feet in what is called a ’special economic zone’ in the southern state. Dell’s and Accenture’s investments were also given the go-ahead.

Google currently operates a development center in Bangalore. Google’s India office was responsible for coming up with Google Finance. About half a dozen technology companies have announced plans to invest a billion dollars or more in India

Bangalore, often viewed as the hub of India’s Silicon Valley, is looking to join a growing list of cities with wireless broadband everywhere, according to news reports.

The Indian Institute of Information Technology in the southern Indian city has been studying the project for the last six months and has short-listed five companies for the project. The service is supposed to be within two years, though no one is offering any details on how it will get done. Karnataka state, of which Bangalore is the capital, would not be bearing any of the cost of the project, a state government official said.

“The companies will have their own revenue model. It (the venture) will be something which will be platform neutral,” Anup K Pujari, Karnataka’s principal secretary, information technology told Indiatimes.com. He said the idea is to provide broadband Internet access for a customer on the move, irrespective of the telecom service provider the customer uses, with the service provider charging for interconnection. “(The) Expectation is that consumer will pay less than what he is paying today (for wired internet broadband access),” Mr. Pujari said.

The Central Tibetan Administration and Tibetan diaspora have launched Tibet Online, a web television site that will devote most of its coverage to the teachings of the Dalai Lama. However Tibetans inside Tibet may not be able to access the Web television site due to the Great Firewall. Looks like for now the website can be viewed inside the Great Firewall, though for how long, who knows!
“Distance often uproots people from their social and cultural moorings. This online TV could well become a rallying point for Tibetans worldwide,” said Kalon Lobsang Nyandak Zayul, director of the documentary Joy of Living. Tibetonline.tv also features an archive of documentary films on Tibet.

“In the light of changing social patterns, particularly the young, increasingly relying on the Internet for news and information, the web TV will go a long way in getting across the policies and works of the Central Tibetan Administration, realizing thereby one of the cardinal objectives of the Kashag: transparency,” Mr. Zayul said.

Qualcomm is not having a good time in India lately. First there was the whole furor over its talks with Indian CDMA mobile operator Reliance Communications breaking down as it refused to lower royalty charges. Then Reliance Communications, which operates India’s second-largest private mobile service, said it would focus on enhancing GSM services, which analysts see as a not so subtle threat to Qualcomm. Now, India’s tax department has sent the Indian unit of Qualcomm a notice seeking details on royalty collection in India, The Hindu Business Line newspaper reports.

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Intel plans to start WiMax trials in the next few months in several cities across India including in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Pune, the Daily News & Analysis reports. “We are also having a dozen trial discussions for the implementation of WiMax networks in India,” Ramamurthy Sivakumar, Intel’s Managing Director for South Asia, told the newspaper.

According to a report by research firms Maravedis and Tonse Telecom India will have 13 million WiMAX subscribers by 2012.  “More than 70 per cent of Indian households do not have access to fixed wired telephone services,” said Adlane Fellah, senior analyst, Maravedis in a press release late June. “Instead, customers have flocked to cellular phone carriers, which have built a tremendous infrastructure to provide service to more than 10 crore (100 million) customers.” (Press Release PDF)

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