examples, the chances of this happening are not good.

Before its November 1 launch, Iridium has launched a media blitz. The latest commercial beamed via satellite television
to millions of homes across the world shows the Himalayas and Kathmandu, while the voice-over talks of how you can now
wait for the dial tone at the ends of the earth. But who really grabs satellite phones first? It is the war correspondents, the
Osma bin Ladens, the businessmen or dying mountaineers on the summit Mt Everest making their last call home. The poor
will be the last to use them, or benefit from them.

How do we ensure that Information Technology will succeed where all earlier previous panaceas have failed? First, by
knowing its limitations. Let us not recklessly promise that this will “level the playing field” or “democratise information"
but do little do-able things with it which will add up to change. A lot of this already happening. It takes more than an hour
to log on to the government-owned ISP in New Delhi because of dirty phone lines and although only India's information
elite have private phone connections or can afford a computer and the ISP fees, but Internet in india has become a vigor-
ous parallel information universe. Activists and media have found this to be an efficient and fast way to counter the main-
stream agenda, especially in the dangerous age of nukes’and religious jingoism.

In places where official information is controlled like in Indonesia, Malaysia and China the Internet has brought the only
available means of spearheading the truth. Across the world, non-governmental organisations, human rights activists,
trampled minorities, suppressed democracy supporters are bonding via email. The Internet's inherent anarchy, its decen-
tralised nature and freedom from official contro! has ironically made a globalised Internet the most ideal medium to take
on the ravages of a globalised economy.

If history has taught us anything, it is that technology by itself is never the answer. The corporate values that drive the
Information Age are the same ones that drove the Industrial Age, and things will be no different with the Internet or Iridium.
it still depends on who gets to control it, who gets to use it and how they use it. Unlike the computer's binary codes, it is
not going to be either/or, plus/minus. The outcome of the Information Age is going to be a messy analogue mishmash.
Parts of the world will be enslaved by Information transnationals, others will be liberated. Some will cash in on a com-
mercialised Internet, others will do just as well without it. Some will be smothered in an avalanche of information over-
load, others who yearn for freedom will use it to bypass tyranny. The degree to which South Asia can benefit from the
Internet's potential for democracy, bring about true decentralisation, or spread knowledge will on how much support the
information-poor get to log on.

In the final analysis, Information Technology is like a tiger. You can either ride it or be eaten up by it. You may be eaten up
anyway, but at least get to ride it for a while.

Kunda Dixit is director of Panos South Asia and co-publisher of Himal magazine. He is also author of the book, Dateline
Earth: Journalism As If The Planet Mattered

THE SITUATION AND IDEA
OF AN "INTER-EAST"

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Terms like "pacific Asia” and “inter-Asia" are so popular key terms for projects in publishing and academic conferences all
around the world. But the future imagination and new vision of Asia should not be restricted and projected onto the mere
Seographic (or geopolitical) perspective. Certainly, the term “Asia” is catchy and easy to understand; but there are other

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