ICT Power

Some wild thoughts on power of ICT and its impact.

The ICT (Information & Communication Technology) has successfully redistributed the 'power' within the state. Just think of the availability of PM or Amitabh on friends / follower list. One can directly connect to these people. Chat with them, appreciate their actions, show the dissent or even use indecent language. Everything is possible here on SNS. This kind of strange 'empowerment' is destabilizing the existing 'power balance' in the society. The new balance may be still far, but the evolving things underline some important issues -

1. The ICT has created entirely new domain of 'Cyber Space'. The virtual world has its own rules. The state or even the common person / youth are not able to define or comprehend them. The traditional notions of communications are changing and no one knows where those are leading!
2. The 'burst of information' makes it difficult for both giver and receiver about its utility. The mere availability of information isn't serving any purpose. It should be useful and used effectively. We are already experiencing nuisance of it.
3. The ICT poses risk to societies / states. There is risk of ceding spaces to enemies or align in the domain of sovereignty or culture.  As a consequence, we may also be losing the ‘battle for the minds’ of the young who depend increasingly on the internet for their information and opinions.
4. The same technologies also empower the state in terms of its capacity for internal surveillance, interception and so on. But their power and reach raise fundamental issues about the lines that a democratic society must draw between the collective right to security and the individual’s right to privacy. What makes it more complicated is the fact that these technologies are not just available to the state, where laws and policies can control and limit their use. They are widely available in the public domain, where commercial and individual motives can easily lead to misuse that is not so easily regulated unless we rethink and update our legal and other approaches.