From the media

On November 5, a Bombay Municipal Corporation squad moved in to demolish & um in central Bombay. The authorities claimed that the settlement was illegal, though the residents and a social action group working in the area said it was not.

As the dust settled, a social worker transmitted an "action alert" about the situation over the FidoNet computer network, which connects millions of computer users all over the world to each other.

Within 48 hours, the BMC, the Maharashtra chief minister and the state governor recieved the first of the approximately 25 fax messages that would pour in over the next two days from housing rights organisations around the country (and from as far away as Bangkok) protesting the slum clearance. BMC officials are now negotiating a compromise with the colony's residents.

In the mid-80's, an elaborate web of electronic highways began to connect the continents. The cyberspace freeways now encircle the planet. The implications are awesome: McLuhan's prediction about the global village has almost been realised.

Anyone with personal computer and a modem (a device which allows computer signals to travel along telephone lines) can hook up to a computer network. Users, each with their own electronic "addresses", gain access to a mindboggling array of information. For instance, users in Bombay can-and do-check the catalogue of the Johns Hopkins University library in the United States, copy some of the thousands of pages of software from public domain archives or check the latest news on the Press Trust of India line.

But more important, computer networks allow randomly dispersed individuals around the world to share interests and information. It has now become routine for Indian social action organisations to forage globally for material to update their documentation centres and to lobby transnationally on issues like the Narmada project.

"So far, the electronic networks have been controlled by the exploiters," said environmentalist Bittu Sehgal, who logs on to FidoNet everyday. "Now those combatting them have access to quick information too. This makes the odds slightly more even.

Said Dr S.Ramani,the director of the National Centre for Software Technology and among India's leading authorities on networking,"Computer networks are begining to affect our lives very realistically. They are not the domain of the few scientists any more."

A few Bombay buffs already know how much fun computers can be.

"Why did the man put a condom behind his ear?" asked the message flashing across the screen as architect Clement DeSylva settled down to another evening in front of the computer.

"Why?" tapped DeSylva on his keyboard, as the screen glowed in his Bandra living room.

"So that he wouldn't get hearing-AIDS," replied Varun Arora a student at St Xavier's College, sitting in his Malabar Hill home.

Desylva and Arora are among the 150 people who use the Live Wire! Bulletin Board Service, an operation run by 25 year old Suchit Nanda from a corner of his bedroom in a swanky North Bombay housing complex.

The only network of it's kind in the country, most LWBBS users live in Bombay, though there are several from other places too."The main advantage is that people get to make friends, you'd never run into otherwise," said Bartocz Drucis, the 22 year old son of a Polish shipping executive. Added Mansoor Khan the director of "Quamat Se Quamat Tak" and network freak, "The idea that you can reach other people in a convenient way is fascinating."

Besides using the E-mail facility (which allows them to send messages to computer users abroad), LWBBS subscribers use the network to help each other out of sticky computer problems, play games against each other, discuss entertainment, eating joints and social concerns. Ocasionally, some of them "download" hi-resolution graphics of scantily clad women.