UN Ag Loans Help Connect Indian Villages To Tech
UN Agriculture Loan Programme Helps Connect Indian Villages
To Modern Technology
New York, May 12 2005 11:00AM
The President of the United Nations agricultural loan fund, Lennart Båge, inaugurates the hub of a knowledge centre today in Chennai that connects 10 southern Indian villages to telephones, computer, radio and community newspapers.
Mr. Båge, head of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), was also scheduled to launch a community radio station in Pillayarkuppam in Pondicherry.
Mr. Båge was then to visit tsunami-affected
areas in the area, where a local foundation and foreign
donors have been upgrading communications since 1998, it
said.
The new media would carry information on
agriculture, health care, employment opportunities,
marketing techniques and new government schemes in local
languages, but the centre would also offer English language
courses and computer science training for children and
youngsters, IFAD said.
As the project got underway, the villages got loudspeakers which broadcast weather forecasts. During the tsunami of last December, such broadcasts warned fishing communities about the hazardous ocean and saved lives, IFAD said.
ENDS