LIRNEasia, a think tank headquartered in Sri Lanka and representing South Asian, has teamed up with the Lanka Fruits, Vegetable Producers and Exporters Association (LFVPEA) and are jointly involved in a project to find out ways and means of obtaining more money from agriculture – and to improve the agriculture value chain to make it a win-win solution.

They held an open discussion programme with expert research findings last week at the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce Auditorium and the focus at this open forum was on pineapple growing and how to assist the pineapple smallholders to overcome the hassles in producing quality consistent fruit, and to ascertain on adequate supplies to the export market.

Kapugama said that Sri Lanka should promote high density planting and intensive management to boost pineapple cultivation in the country.

Pineapple cultivators in Sri Lanka face many challenges due to the scarcity of land, healthy suckers and the absence of high yielding cultivation methods. The high cost of fertiliser is a major factor that affects the cost of production.

Kapugama said that due to the problems faced by pineapple cultivators exporters and pineapple-based product manufacturers are adversely affected. “There should be a proper mechanism to obtain information on pineapple sucker providers based on their reputation”, Kapugama said.

She said that it is essential to promote good practices in pineapple cultivation and added that a market should be created for the organic cultivation of pineapple.

Mobiles are personal devices; toilets are generally a household amenity. Except in Mukesh Ambani’s house, the number of toilets is generally lower than the number of people living in the house. There is no way one can directly compare the number of mobile SIMs, which is what TRAI reports, with the numbers of toilets in a meaningful way.

If one wants a legitimate mobile/phone to toilet comparison, what one has to do is work with data from the demand side: census or representative-sample household surveys. I have been looking at the Sri Lanka Household Income and Expenditure Survey for 2009-10. It has data on whether households have mobiles, fixed phones or both, along with data on toilets for exclusive use of the household. Here is analysis.

It is only in the richest province, the Western Province that contributes around half the GDP, that the number of households with phones comes even close to the number of households with toilets for exclusive use. You could say this is Sri Lanka, and therefore the toilet numbers are high. My point is not to quibble about that. The issue is the error of comparing what cannot be compared. What can be compared are toilets in households and phones/mobiles in households. If that is done, India will not look too bad. But on the other hand, the UN University will not get media coverage.

While noting that Bangladesh boasts of the some of the lowest tariffs in the world, largely a result of budget telecom network business model, Rohan argued that the government’s vision for a “digital” Bangladesh can only be met “by extending the budget telecom network model to broadband, building wireless access networks capable of handling data cost-effectively, backed up by non-discriminatory, cost-oriented access to backhaul, including redundant capacity, and offering applications that are of value to consumers, giving them reason to use broadband.”

Click here to read the full article in the Daily Star. More coverage will be tracked here in the coming days.

Click here to download the full presentation.

M. Somasekhar’s piece on Hindu Business Line on mobile payments says:

Experts from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Kenya, Thailand, the Philippines, Bhutan and Bangladesh among other nations met in Islamabad recently to discuss their experiences in providing mobile phone services for the BoP segment in their respective countries. They agreed that a beginning has been made and the road ahead appeared daunting, but technological progress promised quick results.

Don Sambandaraksa’s  piece “Mobile phones offer hope to ‘bottom of the pyramid” to Bangkok Post focuses on mobile use in farming, transport and banking. Says he:

“ICTs cannot solve all problems, chief of which is land reform, but when it comes to making decisions, lowering transaction costs and going to market and selling, information can make a big difference.

The researched categorised the decision-making process and information value in each from decisions to seed, planting, growing to harvesting and selling.

Information search costs are highest at the beginning of the cycle. Information on deciding what to grow are three times all other costs, and this is where ICTs have a potential role to play.

Sriganesh Lokanathan said that ideally he wanted to change the decision-making chain into a cycle where the decision on what the farmer wants to grow is based on the price when he expects to harvest. For this to happen, prices and supply and demand needed to be predicted and farmers need to get into forward sales contracts which does not often happen in this part of the world.”

Meanwhile we see Pakistan Telecom Authority, the co-organiser takes the message forward. ‘PTA Focuses on Value-Added Services Including E-Commerce, E-Agriculture & E-Education’ was the title of a report from Pakistan Telecom News Bulletin. It says:

Chairman, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Dr. Mohammed Yaseen has said that PTA’s focus is on value added services and with a high penetration level of mobile and low penetration of internet we have to explore the available possibilities which could be gained via mobile 2.0 theories. I very much foresee the further development of presently available technologies and those coming ahead through value added services and content. He was addressing to Connect 2010 ICT Forum – Telecom Session at Expo Centre Karachi and talking to media men on the occasion. He said that our emphasis is on e-commerce, e-agriculture and e-education, it is the time to open doors of opportunities to our young innovative minds and to bridge the unseen gaps between all potentials players of ICT proliferation.

For the full media coverage and presentations,  please see here.

Thailand’s telecommunications sector needs greater regulatory fairness as well as clarity in policy from the government on the future of former state enterprises CAT and ToT if Thailand is to secure the huge investment needed for 3G and data services moving into the future. LIRNEasia…conducted a study of the perceptions towards the regulators in eight emerging Asian economies in the second half of 2008 and representatives from the regulator NTC, ToT, the GSM Association and think-tank TDRI were invited to the report’s presentation. The event was co-hosted by LIRNE Asia, and was hosted by Chulalongkorn University’s Dr Pirongrong Ramasoota, an activist who set the tone of the event by noting that today Thailand is in competition with India to be the last of the eight Asian countries to attain 3G.

Read the full article here.

The article, which documents the introduction of bundled services by telecom companies, uses Aileen’s research on the demand for telecom services in Peru to explain the provision of varied packages by operators to suit different socio-economic groups. Her study shows that the lowest socio-economic group spends only 5% of family income on telecommunications; however, for every 10% increase in family income, Peruvians increases their spending on telecommunications by 19.7% on average.

The full (local language) article is available here. A rough translation of the article in English is available here.

The current issue of Nokia’s Expanding Horizons quarterly magazine highlights LIRNEasia’s Teleuse@BOP3 study findings from India, illustrating this point.

Mobiles are now the most common form of communication, pushing public phones into second place… The rapid evolution of the mobile into a multi-purpose communications and knowledge tool combined with its fast adoption by the BOP, means they and the majority of people in the developing world are likely to have their first Internet experience via a mobile.

Although use of “Mobile 2.0” services such as payments and  e-government services is low, these are the ‘doors’ through which people are likely to enter these services. Governments and industry in South Asia need to understand potential barriers to usage and to identify what will motivate use of ‘non-voice’ applications among the BOP.

Key results can be previewed here. The full article can be viewed here.

India’s “mobile revolution” is still mainly seen in the cities, but the real prize for phone companies is the vast rural market, where nearly 70 percent of the 1.1-billion-strong population live, analysts say.

By the end of January, 34.5 percent of the population owned a telephone, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said.

But those figures distort the picture, with 66 percent of people in cities owning a phone compared to around nine percent in rural areas, says Frost & Sullivan.

“The next addition of subscribers will come from rural regions,” said consultant Trivedi. The government calls the rural market the “next accelerator” for mobile growth.

LIRNEasia’s findings from a recent 3,000 sample-strong demand side study of telecom show that in fact at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) between September 2007 and 2008, India’s rural BOP actually did add more connections than their urban counterparts, with 27% of rural BOP mobile owners (or 11% of all rural BOP teleusers) getting connected versus 19% of urban BOP mobile owners (8% of all urban BOP teleusers) over the period. Adding in fixed phones will increase the numbers marginally.

An important issue in how “urban” versus “rural” connections are counted has become a topic of interest recently. A separate article also published today, in The Hindu (Chennai online edition) highlights an important fact in counting urban and rural connections:  supply-side numbers count phones at the point where they are purchased, not where they are actually used. So a mobile (which is exactly that) purchased in the city may very well be actually used in the surrounding rural areas.

Hence, the statement in the AFP article, that “66 percent of people in cities owning a phone compared to around nine percent in rural areas,” quoting Frost & Sullivan may be reflective of the supply-side situation, not reality. According to LIRNEasia’s demand-side calculations at the BOP (note, not at the overall population level), urban BOP phone penetration (mobile + fixed) was seen to be 47% while rural BOP phone penetration was at 44%. If one was to look at the overall population numbers also from the demand side, the urban-rural gap may be wider than at the BOP-only level, however, it may not be as high as most supply-side numbers present it to be.

In this light, the SSRC organized pre-conference seemed an ideal academic event to attend after many years. I had attended many discussions on researc h in practice while in academia. There was a difference this time.

In 1993, for example, there was a memorable impromptu debate between Eli Noam and Tom Streeter about the efficacy of directly addressing policy makers/ regulators. Eli was of the opinion that it was effective provided it was done right. Tom and several others disagreed, claiming that the channels were rigged against all but powerful corporate interests. I recall this debate very clearly, because Eli, who in addition to his academic role at Columbia was at this time a Commissioner of the New York Public Service Commission, made me a prop in his argument, referring to an intervention that I had made before his Commission. He stated that coming out of the blue (Ohio to be precise), I had upset the well laid plans of some of the largest companies in the country with regard to telecom privacy rules . I was over the moon to get this certificate of efficacy from a Regulator.

However, I knew very well that my intervention had been effective mostly because Eli and his colleagues were primed to give weight to privacy concerns and that my intervention had given them a good opportunity. Two hands were needed for that particular act of clapping; both were not mine.

The debate then was between direct intervention (like mine) and indirect intervention through the media. Media coverage influenced policy makers while direct intervention did not, Streeter et al. argued. In our practice, we play both sides: direct intervention is the preferred mode, but we do believe there is a strong role of media, which constitutes the symbolic environment which our audiences lived in.

There was little discussion on these lines at the 2008 meeting. The focus was on activism: How could scholars communicate effectively to activists? How could they engage in research with activists? Should they become activists? And of course, there was the ritual grumbling about the failure of the university and its reward structure to provide incentives for activism or research of value to activists. There was also hope expressed that the discussion would be conducted in a park, instead of in the comfort of a conference hotel.

It made me wonder whether the Canadian and US societies had abandoned the center in the past 15 years, or whether it was simply a manifestation of the kind of people who attended these kinds of discussions. After all, in 1993, the organizers had rustled up real live regulators and policy makers like Eli Noam (there were a few others too). This time all they had for anyone connected to the policy process was me; and I had come on my own initiative, not because anyone had invited me. The problem, it seemed, had been defined by the organizers in the following fashion: research to activist groups to media to policy process.

Was this because there was too much research and too much information in the system? Direct communication would simply get drowned out, the implication seemed to be. It was only with the ability of activist groups to ratchet up the intensity of the communication, especially on the non-rational side (recall the anti WTO street protests), that change would occur. But are street protesters interested in research results or reasoned arguments in the first place? They are certain of the answers; why bother with evidence? Perhaps this is the larger and more productive challenge: getting activists to appreciate the value of evidence.

I talked about successes: not only about the changes we had made to Indian and Indonesian policies through proactive evidence-based interventions; but also about the successes achieved through the evidence-based but reactive and a bit more shrill intervention in the case of the regressive mobile tax in Sri Lanka last year. No one else did. It was all about inputs and processes and wishes and complaints. Perhaps it is considered immodest in these circles to talk about outcomes? Perhaps there were no outcomes that could be reported from the activist model?

May be actual changes in policy were not that important any more? The Chair of the group that I spoke in, Joe Karaganis of the SSRC, asked me whether we had any success in communicating research effectively to non-government actors (I paraphrase). I recounted the unintended consequence of shifting Sarvodaya from a sole focus on relief and recovery in relation to disasters to a broader focus on preparedness and risk reduction, in addition to relief and recovery. This is our long-haul project. We have changed minds, but we have still to get to a real result: given the difficulties of getting the sustainability phase of HazInfo up and running, we are still short on outcome.

Did I learn anything from the exercise? I have greater confidence in our approach. I am skeptical still about working through activists in a specialized area such as ours (where are these activists in Asia anyway?). Besides, I was not presented any evidence of the efficacy of this approach. I do hope that SSRC will keep this group of committed individuals focused on the prize of actually changing things in the real world. The tendency I have seen among NGOs in Asia to basically see communication among themselves and for themselves as an end in itself should be avoided at all costs. I wish this group success in their endeavors.

Another book by Rohan Samarajiva, from LirneAsia, a Colombo-based regional policy think tank, had been detained by customs from December.

Samarajiva’s book, “ICT infrastructure in emerging Asia, Policy and Regulatory roadblocks” released by the Indian unit of academic publishing house, Sage, was launched in India in December.

Sri Lanka;s customs chief Sarath Jayathilake was quoted in the report as saying that the detention was not brought to his attention and he was not aware why the books were seized.

“We usually detain these books if it’s a matter of security and we refer them to Defence (Ministry) or the Government Information Department,” Jayathilake was quoted as saying.

The LirneAsia publication had a chapter on telecommunications usage in the Jaffna peninsular.

“Our book has nothing about the conflict, other than a single chapter that I co-authored on teleuse between the wars in the government areas of Jaffna,” Samarajiva wrote in the LirneAsia website, questioning what moral or legal right Sri Lanka customs had to censor academic works.

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LIRNEasia’s new book, ICT Infrastructure in Emerging Asia: Policy and Regulatory Roadblocks, was unveiled on the 16th of December at the IIT-Madras Campus. The first copies of the book were handed over to Chief Guests of the event, Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala and Professor William Melody.

Edited by Professor Rohan Samarajiva and Ayesha Zainudeen and co-published by Sage Publications and the IDRC, this well-structured volume brings together scholars, practitioners, former regulators and policy makers to address the problem of expanding ICT connectivity in emerging Asia. It centrally engages the widespread claim that technology by itself—independent of policy and regulatory reform—can improve access to ICTs. In doing so, it shows that complex workarounds are possible, but they are significantly less effective than the appropriate policy and regulatory reforms.

More information on the book is available here. Media coverage can be seen here.

With foreign journalists barred from what is one of the world’s most closed states, much of the worldwide media coverage is coming from exiled newshounds in countries such as Thailand and India — and their clandestine contacts on the inside.

Technology ranging from the latest Internet gizmo to satellite uplinks to camera phones are ensuring pictures of the massed marches of monks and civilians and the response by security forces is on TV screens around the world in hours.

The contrast to Myanmar’s last major uprising, in 1988, could not be more stark. Then, as many as 3,000 people were killed when soldiers opened fire on the crowds but it took days for the news — let alone pictures or video footage — to emerge.

“The difference is night and day,” said Dominic Faulder, a Bangkok-based British reporter during the 1988 uprising.

“Now, the whole population are journalists on the move equipped with all sorts of information-capturing devices from telephones and video machinery that you just couldn’t use in 1988.”

Then, Faulder said, all information went via the telex at Yangon’s posh Strand Hotel, a single line that on one day accounted for 90 percent of all international calls, according to the government spies who came round the next day to find out why. Read more.

Following opening remarks by Chairman of PTA, Major General (R) Shahzada Alam Malik, Samarajiva and Wilson presented the new improved version of the six-country Telecom Regulatory Environment study, with emphasis on Pakistan.

de Silva discussed the results of the Teleuse @ the Bottom of the Pyramid (T@BOP) survey conducted in five countries, including Pakistan. Among other things, he discussed the disparate access to ICTs between men and women at the BOP as well as the tremendous progress made in connecting large numbers of people at the BOP in the past few years.

Iqbal presented comparative analysis of mobile prices in three countries of South Asia, using a basket methodology adapted from one used by the OECD since 1995. With these comparisons, she illustrated that Pakistan has the lowest prices for SMS and also for low-users.

From the Daily Times, Pakistan. 15 June 2007

Presentation slides:
Telecom Regulatory Environment 2006 | Rohan Samarajiva & Joseph Wilson
Teleuse@BOP: Pakistan in Asian Context | Harsha de Silva
Basket methodology to benchmark telecom prices in South Asia: The cases of Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka | Tahani Iqbal
News Releases:
TRE:Telecom Regulatory Environment (TRE) 2006 survey results: Pakistan among the leaders in Telecom Regulatory Environment, a regional study reveals
Teleuse@BOP: Pakistan BOP doing well overall in telecom, but large gender divide still exists
Price comparisons: Pakistan low-user mobile baskets cheaper than in India and Sri Lanka; SMS charge is lowest in South Asia and lower even than in the Philippines

Media coverage
pakcoverage14jun07_1.pdf
pakcoverage14jun07_2.pdf

The study, Teleuse@BOP, is the second study of this nature that LIRNEasia has conducted. It has brought out several interesting findings, which would provide valuable insights into the telecom user space in these Asian countries.

Media coverage of the Teleuse@BOP findings are below:

Telecom Journal from Thailand