Browsing by Subject "ICT4D"

In the Monsoon season of 2015, the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, revealed his ambitious programme ‘Digital India’ which aims to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. However, the gender dimension of digitalisation is absent in the conversations about Digital India. In the said background, the thesis strives to address the lacunae in the debates and investigate what digitalisations means for expanding women’s capabilities in India. The premise of the thesis was grounded in two conceptual notions. Firstly, Amartya Sen’s and Martha Nussbaum’s capability approach served as the normative framework and as a tool for evaluating digitalisation in India. Secondly, information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) formed another fundamental building block for the thesis. The principal objective of the study was to investigate women’s wellbeing in the digitalisation process in India. Nine organisations, working in the field of women’s rights and/or digitalisation, were interviewed to gather the principal data. In the research, knowledge acquired was rearranged with the support of the theoretical framework. The qualitative content analysis method was employed through which three distinct categories were discovered: independence, sexuality and control. In the analysis, these three categories were utilised to dissect the impact of digitalisation on women’s capabilities in India. The findings of the thesis demonstrate that digitalisation efforts expand women’s internal capabilities. Women have acquired independence through gaining economic capabilities through e-commerce, where women are able to sell their products to a larger audience. Furthermore, technologies allow the incorporation of women’s voices in the flow of information, addressing issues that matter to them and rendering their view on events. Many interviewees stressed the importance of access to information that women gain with ICTs. However, Modi’s government treats digitalisation as a panacea for India’s challenges and views ICTs as ends rather than means. The Government fails to address the socio-cultural norms that impede on women’s capabilities to utilise ICTs even if they acquire digital literacy. As seen through the study, women have shown poorer conversion rates in transforming ICT-commodities into capabilities and functionings. Thus, the current implementation of digitalisation in India is at a risk of generating more inequalities as opposed to reducing them.