By Payal Malik (Senior Researcher, LIRNEasia)
The Indian Express: Op-Ed
October 31, 2005
TRAI has recently come out with its recommendations on Growth of Telecom services in Rural India (www.trai.gov.in). It is an insightful attempt to address the anomalies of the current universal service obligation (USO) regime for the provision of rural telephone subsidy. In this article I describe the main lacunae of the current USO policy and outline how TRAI’s proposals ameliorate these flaws; the interested reader is directed to an independent research study that reviewed the current rural telephony subsidy mechanism. (read more…)
2 Comments
KOFO ADEPEGBA
i am interested in rural telephone system, and i would like to have information on your rural telephone sytem…particularly the provision of cheap telephone services for the rural population…
Banwo Ogwu
Hi Kofo,
Are you Deola Ogunbawo’s husband. If you are please her to e-mail at bannyogwu@yahoo.com. I have been trying to reach her.
Banwo Ogwu
Rebuilding telecom infrastructure after disaster: Resilience or building back better?
In an article published on 31 December 2025 in the Daily FT, LIRNEasia Chair Professor Rohan Samarajiva highlights how the Ditwah disaster exposed major vulnerabilities in telecom networks. He emphasizes that numerous telecom sites across the country were affected, leaving many districts without mobile or data services for days, which restricted access and delayed restoration efforts.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) governance is a concern Sri Lanka must address now
LIRNEasia Data, Algorithms, and Policy (DAP) Team Lead and Research Manager Merl Chandana was featured in ‘The Morning’ newspaper on 28 December 2025, in an article by Nelie Munasinghe, where he underscored the urgency of moving from AI policy discussions to real-world implementation. “The perception that Sri Lanka has not yet widely adopted AI is inaccurate.
Gayani Hurulle at UNESCAP workshop on Cross-Border Data Sharing for Digital Public Service Innovation
Gayani Hurulle (Senior Research Manager, LIRNEasia) was invited to conduct a session on the current state and challenges associated with cross-border data sharing at a regional capacity-building workshop on ‘Cross-Border Data Sharing for Digital Public Service Innovation’. This workshop, organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) in collaboration with the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT), Republic of Korea, was held on 18 December 2025 in Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Links
User Login
Themes
Social
Twitter
Facebook
RSS Feed
Contact
9A 1/1, Balcombe Place
Colombo 08
Sri Lanka
+94 (0)11 267 1160
+94 (0)11 267 5212
info [at] lirneasia [dot] net
Copyright © 2026 LIRNEasia
a regional ICT policy and regulation think tank active across the Asia Pacific