Nokia to develop 500 smart villages in India
New Delhi, May 16: In line with the government's Digital India programme, Nokia on Wednesday launched a "Smartpur" digital village project with the aim of developing 500 digitally integrated villages across the country in five years.
"India is on the brink of a phenomenal digital journey which can only be successful if it is all inclusive," said Ambassador of Finland to India Nina Vaskunlahti after inaugurating a pilot of the project in Tain village of Nuh district in Haryana.
"Smartpur project is a significant step in that direction which will integrate these villages and rural communities, providing digital tools and Internet connectivity for social and economic impact that truly makes a village smart and fosters a digitally inclusive society," she added.
With the Smartpur project, Nokia said it aims to create a sustainable ecosystem in villages where community members can leverage digital tools to bring efficiency in daily lives, transparency in governance, economic prosperity for households and ease of access to various government services and information.
The project will work under the five key areas of development - health, education, livelihood, governance and finance - to build a holistic, digitally integrated village, the Finnish telecom gear maker said.
"The Smartpur initiative is our contribution to delivering the benefits of broadband infrastructure and services to the 'telecom-dark' areas and support the government's vision of Digital India for a more inclusive growth," said Sanjay Malik, head of India for Nokia.
According to the International Telecom Union ICT (information and communications technology) Facts and Figures, 20 per cent of households in developed countries and as many as 66 per cent of households in developing countries do not have Internet access, leaving almost four billion people from developing countries offline.
Nearly a billion of these unconnected people live in India, mostly in rural India.
"At Nokia, we believe connecting the unconnected opens up opportunities in many areas and has tremendous potential to enable socio-economic empowerment of individual as well as communities," Malik said.
In the first phase of the project, 20 villages will be digitally integrated in Haryana and Tamil Nadu in a "hub and spoke" model.
Tain village in Nuh district of Haryana and Asoor in Kanchipuram district, Tamil Nadu, will serve as hub which will host a digital centre with telecom connectivity to provide ICT-enabled, primary services.
The spoke centres will further extend these services to nine other villages from each hub, Nokia said.
In the second phase, the project will be scaled-up to up to another 80 villages across various states and subsequently, it will be extended to another 400 villages over a period of five years, it added.
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NDTV’s senior editor calls Iran “terrorist regime” in ‘X’ post, deletes after backlash NDTV’s senior
NDTV’s senior executive editor, who covers foreign affairs, has drawn backlash after in an ‘X’ post he referred to Iran as a “terrorist regime.”
Following backlash the Journalist deleted the post.
This came at a time when India was in talks with the west asian country over passage of Indian oil tankers via the strategic ‘strait of hormuz.’
Meanwhile, tensions in the Middle East continued to escalate.
In the post, Kaul allegedly wrote, “#BREAKING: The Israeli army has launched a massive wave of attacks against the infrastructure of the Iranian terrorist regime across Iran.” The post has since been deleted.
Reacting to the post, netizens criticised and questioned journalistic neutrality.
Though the post was deleted, screengrabs of it continued circulating on social media platforms garnering criticism.
In a report, digital magazine Karvaan India highlighting critics’ concern reported that media ethicists have increasingly cautioned journalists, even when posting on social media in a personal capacity, their messages still reflect their professional roles and affiliations.
Critics warn that ignoring this distinction can compromise journalistic credibility and blur the line between reporting and personal commentary.
According to analysts cited by Karvaan India, the issue also involves significant diplomatic sensitivities.
Experts cited in the report also note that commentary from prominent Indian journalists during such conflicts can carry broader geopolitical implications, especially if it seems to align with the narrative of one side.
Reacting on the development, Author Salman Anees Soz criticised Kaul’s language and described the tweet stating that “it's shocking.”
In an ‘X’ post, he wrote, “It is shocking that a senior editor of a major Indian news organisation is describing the government of a country with which India has diplomatic relations as a ‘terrorist regime’. Journalists are expected to report, not act as spokespersons for one side in a war.”
In another post, Soz wrote, “If @ndtv reporters are calling Iran’s government a “terrorist regime”, then what the h*ll is our foreign minister doing talking to Iran’s Foreign Minister? Why did the Foreign Secretary express condolences at the Iranian embassy?.”
Several social media users also condemned the language used in the post.
“Israeli army but ‘Iranian terrorist regime.’ Aditya, could mistake you for a spokesperson of IDF rather than a journalist,” wrote a user.
“If you’re copy-pasting your headlines from somewhere, give them credit or just repost them. Because no Indian journalist outlet or government official is calling the Iranian regime a ‘terrorist regime’” wrote another user.
Another claimed, “Aditya Raj Kaul has been consistently referring to Iranian government as "terror regime" at least since 4th March.”
