The great Indian phone book how the cheap cell phone changes business, politics, and daily life /
Assa Doron and Robin Jeffrey.
- first Harvard University Press edition.
- Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, (c)2013.
- 1 online resource (xxxii, 293 pages, 24. pages of plates) : illustrations, maps
Includes bibliographies and index.
Introduction: 'so uncanny and out of place' -- Controlling communication -- Celling India -- Missionaries of the mobile -- Mechanics of the mobile -- For business -- For politics -- For women and households -- For 'wrongdoing': 'waywardness' to terror -- Conclusion: 'it's the autonomy, stupid'. part 1. Controlling -- part 2. Connecting -- part 3. Consuming.
In 2001, India had 4 million cell phone subscribers. Ten years later, that number had exploded to more than 750 million. Over just a decade, the mobile phone was transformed from a rare and unwieldy instrument to a palm-sized, affordable staple, taken for granted by poor fishermen in Kerala and affluent entrepreneurs in Mumbai alike. The Great Indian Phone Book investigates the social revolution ignited by what may be the most significant communications device in history, one which has disrupted more people and relationships than the printing press, wristwatch, automobile, or railways, though it has qualities of all four.