Nor are we anywhere near the end: there is intense competition among service providers, each has invested crores in infrastructure; but now, thanks to advances in internet telephony, you can call the US or Europe for almost nothing. What will that do to the thousands of crores invested by companies in setting up telecom infrastructure?

The effects on national security are even more evident, just as they are of even greater consequence. Terrorists remind us every day of the consequences of the miniaturization and increased lethality of the technologies of violence. But the lesson is not lost on states. As technology advances, economies become progressively integrated. That induces the Chinese to acquire capabilities to hurl what they call “the assassin’s mace” at the “acupuncture points” of other, modern, integrated societies — national power grids, air-traffic control systems, rail-traffic control systems, financial and banking operations, communication networks — so that, by disrupting and corrupting them simultaneously, the societies are thrown into disarray for those few vital moments.

Lemmas

For us in India, pushed around as we are ever so often by Luddites, these features of technological change hold several lemmas.

First, as a consequence of technological and economic changes, every country is bound to be buffeted by massive dislocations. Take what is today the most successful example of propelling and managing change: China. According to official Chinese estimates, the “floating population” is anywhere between 120 and 140 million. As they lose rights to medical treatment and education once they leave their place of residence, the 20 million children in tow are now bereft of these services. And this is the situation in a country that has today the most purposive government among emerging economies.

... contd.