Digital India

Mr. Rao is an aged person in his late sixties. One day he wore a grey colour checked shirt and went out to meet his best friend on his newly purchased Activa Honda. He slipped his mobile in his shirt pocket.It was a very hot afternoon in the month of May and the sun god had no mercy for the people of earth.Even though it was afternoon, the roads were jam packed and traffic was to its peak as it was the leaving time of almost all the schools in the locality. The signal showed red and Mr. Rao stopped his Activa. Just a few minutes later his mobile started ringing, he was about to pick his mobile that he heard the honking sound of the vehicles . He lifted his head and saw that the signal light had turned green. The honking sound of the vehicles behind intensified, they wanted him to make a move. Mr Rao quickly popped his mobile in his shirt pocket and made way for the other vehicles. He stopped his vehicle near a shady tree as it was striking hot and went out to look his mobile.Alas, by this time the mobile had stopped ringing.

Even though Mr Rao was a teacher in his early years, he had mere knowledge about the recent gadgets like mobiles, computers, tablets etc. He had a small telephone pocket book where he had written the numbers of his family, friends and close acquaintances . Even though technology had moved forward , Mr Rao was still having an old basic model of Nokia mobile. His son had brought him a smart phone but he was not comfortable with the touch screen concept, so he still used to carry the old basic model itself. He was aware only of the two buttons on his mobile I.e the green button and the red button. Green button for taking the call and red one for ending the call. Now that he had missed the call he had no idea as to who had given him a call. When at home this was not a problem as his daughter in law would quickly identify the caller and would dial him the number. Now that he was alone he had no idea as to how to identify the caller. He wanted to take help from someone, what if it was an urgent call.

He then rode on his Activa for about ½ a kilometre and stopped near mobile stores. He asked the mobile shop boy whether he would dial him the recently received call.The boy immediately navigated to the call – register and then went to the received call list and dialled him the most recent call.There was a spark of joy on Mr. Rao's face. He thanked the mobile store's boy and left.

There is a proverb in English “ If you give a fish to a man you will feed him for a day but if you teach him how to fish you will feed him a lifetime”. This holds good in case of the above scenario.

Out of the 121 crores of the Indian population, about 10 crores are above the age of 60 which accounts for about 8 %. There are millions of people in India like Mr. Rao who may be intelligent but are not aware of the 21^st technologies. The elderly generation has laid the foundation for the present generation and now its the turn of the present youth to teach their elders with new techniques like mobile handling, computer knowledge, online banking, online purchasing, Paytms, using debit cards for purchasing and drawing money from atms. This will be one of the best gifts which we as youth can give our elders. Sitting in the house they can transfer money, make a purchase and so on, they need not go out in the scorching sun to meet their daily requirements.

Our prime minister Mr Narendra Modi launched the Digital India program on 1^st July 2015. Now it becomes our responsibility to teach our elders the concepts of digitisation and make way for Digital India. If the youth and elders go hand in hand then the day won't be far when India will be showered with the coveted title of being Digital India.