Abhayagiriya before restoration, 19th century. Photographer unknown

Observed few things fresh on my day at the Abhayagiri monastery complex. One was a rock inscription in ancient devanagari. It was not about a donation made by a king or a minister, as usual, or even a notification of a new regulation. The Sanskrit stanza was meant for Buddhist monks. Not a rule; but more a guide.

Why in Sanskrit? The local language could have been more appropriate if not for the sizable foreign student population at this ancient university. An academy as famous as Takshila, Vikramashila and Nalanda in the ancient Buddhist world, the Abhyagiriya University was said to have hosted 5,000 student monks in its hey days according to Fa Xian, a Chinese Buddhist monk who traveled to Nepal, India, and Sri Lanka to acquire Buddhist scriptures in 5th CAD. The complex would have been larger than any of the present Sri Lankan university premises and of the same size of the ancient Anuradhapura city centre.

The cost of construction and maintenance couldn’t have come only from the government. No matter how pious the kings and the subjects were, they couldn’t have made such colossal allocations from the treasury for no return. The only modes of survival were by levying tuition fees or producing outcomes of not religious, but true economic value. Probably the institution did both. Unlike Theravada, Mahayana doctrine did not prevent monks from studying non-religious ‘lay’ subjects. Couldn’t it be here they designed the sophisticated irrigation system in ancient Lanka? Couldn’t this be the place where they did Ayurvedic medical research?

Couldn’t this have been the independent economic centre for knowledge in the latter Anuradhapura period?

Not a surprise if we have no records, because all chronicles were done by the Theravada monks at Mahavihara, the arch rivals of Abhayagiri.

The incident that triggered this move was the suicide of a fourteen year old girl of a leading school in Colombo, whose mobile phone, with personal information, has been confiscated by the prefects. We are bit confused why no ban on school ties – what the girl used to hang herself in the wash room. Please note: No international conspiracies to tarnish the image of the country have not been indicated so far.

The VGKs were to be in areas where traffic patterns allowed for sustainability. Just because people live in villages, it does not mean that they never come to market or that their children do not go to school or tuition classes in rural nodal points. Careful studies were commissioned to identify places where there would be enough foot traffic to make telecenters sustainable. All this was thrown to the wind and telecenters were given to temples primarily at the behest of the President. Obviously, they are unsustainable. No amount of assistance from the computer technician at the local Vidatha center is going to bring foot traffic to fundamentally unsustainable locations. That answer given by the Minister in the interview linked here is a non sequitur. A technician can keep the computers operational, he/she can’t bring customers. And the Minister seems to thinks that charging fees increases the digital divide and that not charging fees and having the center close down narrows it. He makes no mention of the vouchers that were designed and implemented under e Sri Lanka to address the issue without making the centers unsustainable.

Sadly, Professor Vitarana repeats falsehoods and lies by omission. Now we are compelled to blame the former man of science. He is, we now understand, a common or garden politician who cares nothing for evidence.

If he wants evidence, there is plenty. You see, we do not give up hope. All he has to do is get a list of VGKs and Nenasalas from ICTA and check their locations to see who is serving urban areas and who is serving rural. The vouchers were operational, the last time we asked. All he has to do is ask.

More perilous, however, is the inequality between rural and urban India. Despite several policy initiatives to promote rural penetration, growth in teledensity continues to be skewed in favour of urban India. In fact, the rural population is much worse off than it was a few years ago compared to its urban counterpart.

In March 1998, the difference between urban and rural teledensity was 5.4. In September 2008, the corresponding number had grown to 56.6, which means the divide has worsened almost 12 times in the last 10 years. Since number of fixed phones is declining, the entire change can be attributed to mobile telephony.

Sustainability is not an issue for this telecenter. It provides all its service, be it Internet surfing, computer training, library facilities or even typesetting and printing services free of charge, treating them as community services.

Thondaman Foundation, a non-profit organization, with a ministerial backing, that intends “to make available to the plantation community the wide advantages of the internet and intranet communication technologies” has set up this centre in the middle of the picturesque Glenore estate at Haputale, to serve a population of 5,000 from the surrounding villages. This is one of the 45 such centres in different estates in the Central, Uva and Sabaragamuva provinces.

The white dish, gives a sense of remoteness, but it need not be. As the crow flies, this place is close to both Bandarewela and Haputale – so close that 3G HSPA signals from both key providers are available. According to our tests, quality is medium to good for both. Had I not been late for my next visit, I could have done this blog post from there itself.

In other words, Minister Thondaman, you might be paying few times more for a dedicated radio link when you can have 3G HSPA broadband facilities from the same provider for not more than Rs. 3,000 (USD 26) per month.