Equality, Inclusion and Empowerment through E-Governance: Leveraging and Repositioning Libraries to Support National Digital Programmes

Abstract

The overall purpose of paper is to examine as to whether libraries can reposition themselves as nerve centres of E-Governance & Digital programmes towards building capacities of common masses so as to partner with India’s public policy programme for building an inclusive and equal society . Massive socio-political changes around the globe are increasingly leading to questioning the exclusion of marginalized groups and ways of redressing this imbalance through public policies based on e-governance. It is argued that despite enormous economic growth, India largely remains one of the world’s the most unequal societies revolving around the axis of class, caste, tribal status, religion and gender. It further argues that e-governance initiatives are slowly altering the ecology of India’s governance structure substantially but its reach is still confined to upper strata of society and needs to percolate down far and deep for truly empowering the vast number of marginalized Indian masses. Paper broaches that e-governance initiatives promote inclusiveness & empowerment of poor when traditional governance channels perpetuate exclusiveness, inequality and injustice . It is concluded that in view of massive digital divide, libraries can play a pivotal role by transforming and repositioning themselves as capacity building hubs.