Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced, during PM Narendra Modi’s Silicon Valley visit over the weekend, that Microsoft would provide ‘low-cost broadband technology’ to 500,000 villages in India, reports PTI. For this, the company will partner with the Indian Government under the Digital India program. Nadella added that this could be used across governments and businesses of all sizes, adding that the initiative would drive ‘more affordable products and services and access to opportunity’ for the country. He also mentioned that this week, Microsoft would announce its cloud services operating from India’s data centres. Inspiring discussion with @NarendraModi on how tech is a powerful tool to enable human ingenuity #ModiInUSA http://t.co/wgZQeMql0P — Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) September 27, 2015 As of now, there are no details on what kind of technology will be implemented, neither on which villages will be selected and on what basis. However, Nadella tweeted a link with Microsoft’s association with Digital India which detailed two solutions: - digital cloud for every Indian where it has introduced a health record management system called HealthVault through which a user’s health info can be stored, organised, accessed and shared online via the cloud; - and internet connectivity through the TV white space: this is licensed but unutilised TV band spectrum and has a much larger range than WiFi, for connecting villages and possibly setting up emergency broadband networks in times of disaster recovery situations. Other developments in this space: Facebook drones: In July, we reported that Facebook was working on delivering…
