Page 131 - From Bombay to Bollywoord The Making of a Global Media Industri

118 << Dot-Coms and the Making of an Overseas Territory

information became iconic of a new vision of progress toward the twenty-
first century. Sundaram writes:

The way forward was computerization, networking, and a new visual
regime based on a national television network . . . the “national” was reaf-
firmed but through a new discourse which complicated the notion of bor-
ders and sovereignty that were so central to the old visual regime. 6

It is in relation to this transition in the political elite’s vision of development
that we need to understand the evolution of computer networks during the
1980s, policy changes concerning telecommunications and the Internet during
the 1990s, and the development of the Internet economy during the early years
of the twenty-first century. A brief overview of the development of computer
networks in India would be useful before we move on to consider how the
Indian American “techie” diaspora influenced the dot-com economy in India.
The first nationwide computer network in India was developed by the
National Informatics Center (NIC), a United Nations Development Program
(UNDP) funded center that became functional in 1977 and was charged with
introducing and promoting the computerization of government services. 7
Called NICNET, the satellite-linked network was inaugurated in 1984–85
and connected administrative and governmental bodies at the district, state,
and central levels. By the late 1980s, NICNET, headquartered in New Delhi,
emerged not only as a vast and powerful network but also, as Sundaram
points out, introduced a “simulated space which would accelerate that which
was lacking in the old” imaginary of development. The development of NIC-
8
NET was accompanied by other initiatives such as the establishment of the
National Centre for Software Technology in 1986 in Bombay and the Educa-
tion and Research Network (ERNET) that connected all the Indian Institutes
of Technology and a cluster of other centers of higher education such as the
9
Regional Engineering Colleges and the Indian Institute of Science. In addi-
tion to these two networks, the rapidly growing IT industry was supported
by high-speed data communication facilities set up by Software Technology
Parks of India (STPIs) in cities like Bangalore, Pune, and Hyderabad. These
networks, however, were not open for public use and only served the needs
of the government, academic, and IT sectors. Public access to the Internet
began only in 1995, when Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL), a state-
controlled telephone company under the purview of the Department of
Telecommunications (DoT), began offering Internet services through dial-
up connections. By the mid-1990s, these state-sponsored networks provided
email and Web access to approximately 120,000 users across the country. 10