With the government pushing the Digital India initiative and shifting its focus from literacy to digital literacy, information dissemination has taken a huge leap in India. Successful implementation of these initiatives will lead to a well-connected populace that accesses millions of bytes of data every second and becomes more aware.
In this digital era, corporations & media houses have been able to push their ideologies and notions in a well-concealed manner than before through native advertising (or what you may call content marketing). But is this the objective behind digital literacy & digital India? I would like to believe not.
Actual empowerment happens when the citizens start availing the government services through this medium & leverage it to protect their rights (not just freedom of expression).
While on one hand our judiciary is overburdened with millions of pending cases, on the other hand seldom does a common man resort to a legal course of action when caught in a dispute. We have grown to be more adjustive to day-to-day unlawful activities. For instance, did you ever question a shopkeeper selling a water bottle for higher than the MRP? or did you ever question someone who was riding on the other side & caused an inconvenience? The answer is mostly 'No'.
You can't be blamed since the efforts required to initiate a legal action is more cumbersome than adjusting to the inconvenience. Or is it really so? Actually, we as citizens are not aware of the rights & systems in place to resolve disputes legally and hence presume it to be complicated & unwarranted.
We have definitely come a long way in at least consumer dispute redressals but a lot more needs to be done.
As I once read somewhere:
As I once read somewhere:
"Power comes not from the barrel of a gun, but from one's awareness of his or her own legal rights".
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