ANINI, ARUNACHAL PRADESH, AUGUST 24: A new place was born last week on India’s telecom map. The Information Superhighway reached Anini last Sunday, even though the highway is a long way away.

Even by North-east standards, this town — the district headquarters — is Remote with a capital R. In the absence of an all-weather road, it takes four days’ travel — the last few hours by chopper, through swirling mist — to reach here from Delhi; the government pays Rs 150 for each kilo of rice made available to the locals, and buying a bag of cement can set you back by Rs 1500. Yet Anini is connected to the world — by a free cyber-cafe.

Perched strategically on the Chinese border, Anini’s Idu Mishmi tribals now have a computer center, one of the 487 Community Information Centers (CIC) set up by the Ministry of Information Technology (MIT) in this area. ‘‘This isn’t a luxury’’, says Union IT minister Pramod Mahajan. ‘‘It’s needed to bridge the communication divide that separated the region from the rest of India.’’

Some divide. There was no road when the centre was built — the link with the nearest road-head, CM Mukut Mithi’s constituency Roeing was built less than a year ago — so the six Pentiums and other peripherals were transported on elephant-back!