All of them, without exception, carried their own cell phone.

Acknowledging that it will take a lot to make information accessible and useful to 1.1 billion India, Google’s India labs are developing services for mobile devices and for local markets. 

“We recognize that users want to access and share information that’s relevant to them in their local environment,” the company says. It wants to develop technologies, products and services inspired by the needs of users.

A pilot service allows mobile users to get premium content such as news and blogs.  An SMS search service available nationally offers searches on stock quotes, news, movie timings, cricket scores and weather information.

On its part, Google’s Internet bus may itself have converted a few improbable users.  Farmer Sidgangappa says he wants his son Kiran Kumar, 25, studying to be an automobile mechanic, to get on to the Internet and search for a job. 

“There is no progress to be made in farming, I would rather my son live peacefully earning a steady income on a full-time job,” says Sidgangappa.  He has mapped out his son’s future on the Internet — first the job websites and then, maybe, the matrimonial websites.

saritha.rai@expressindia.com