ArticleAuthors: Nimmi Rangaswamy (2008)
Telecenter initiatives run by non-profit agents are widely believed to be critical access points for digital inclusion. By contrast, Internet or cyber cafe´s are viewed generally merely as commercial sites, thus falling outside the purview of non-profit initiatives promoting e-literacy. From a contextual study of Internet cafe´s in urban and suburban Mumbai and in peri-urban small towns of Maharashtra state, India, we report on the localization of information and communication technology (ICTs), including how Internet cafe´s discern survival niches and how they often serve as reasonably-priced initiation nodes for first-time users. This article discusses a variety of context-specific ... 
