NEW DELHI: A new survey released yesterday by Google revealed that only a third of urban Indian voters accessed the Internet regularly, underlining the limitations of online campaigning ahead of elections next year.
Internet use remains low across India due to poverty and a poor IT infrastructure that leaves most of the country excluded, with only 150 million out of a population of 1.2 billion online at the beginning of the year.
This figure is expected to reach about 200 million by the end of 2013, Google India managing director Rajan Anandan told reporters, with the overwhelming majority of netizens located in cities.
Out of more than 7,000 voters surveyed in 65 urban constituencies, only 37 percent said they were online.
Anandan stressed, however, that these were politically engaged people who were hungry for information about candidates and their parties.
“Looking at the data, the Internet is very likely to have a very significant impact on voting, in urban India at a minimum,” he told a press conference.
Indian elections are historically fought in the countryside through rallies and grassroots campaigns.
AFP
